Cray on HPC Storage Market With Completion of Acquisition of Seagate’s ClusterStor Storage Business

Cray Inc. completed the previously announced transaction and strategic partnership with Seagate Technology plc centered around the addition of the ClusterStor performance storage business.

ClusterStor L300

With the strategic transaction complete, the company will continue to sell, support, develop, manufacture, and test ClusterStor storage solutions with Lustre, including the ClusterStor L300, the next-generation ClusterStor L300N and the ClusterStor SL220.

ClusterStor L300N

“Storage is the fastest-growing part of the expanding HPC market and Cray is positioned to be an even more important player in the storage market,” said Steve Conway, SVP, research, Hyperion Research. “As a pioneer in providing large-scale storage systems for supercomputers, it’s fitting that Cray will take over the ClusterStor line.“

The company will also continue to provide support for the ClusterStor product line for existing customers and will collaborate with Seagate to integrate future Seagate technologies into its storage products.

“We are working to provide customers and partners with a seamless transition of the ClusterStor storage business to Cray,” said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO, Cray. “With the constant growth, data and the need to move it quickly for data-intensive simulations and artificial intelligence models, the addition of the ClusterStor line enhances an important piece of our product portfolio. With the transition complete, ClusterStor customers and partners will be able to get purpose-built high-performance storage systems with industry-leading price/performance that are designed, manufactured, and supported by Cray and our partners.“

The company will offer service and support for the more than twenty ClusterStor partners and resellers by incorporating a service toolkit, shorter escalation path to development, and a single knowledge base.

“As a long-time customer of Cray and Seagate storage systems, who are committed to the development of extreme-scale computing, we are thrilled to see Cray continue the development of this product,” said Prof. Dr. Thomas C. Schulthess, director, Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS). “The addition of ClusterStor is a logical next step for Cray and our researchers and scientists will clearly benefit from this enhancement.“

ClusterStor L300N
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The advantage of ClusterStor line is its ability to make HPC storage systems simpler. It is designed to reduce the complexity in the storage system to enable system design, easy installation, workload management, data flow, scalability, system efficiency, and faster time to results. The systems balance the value equation to achieve the performance levels, scalability, and availability, at the right budget.

“This move by Cray not only shows a commitment to the success of the ClusterStor storage systems, but ,o shows Cray’s commitment to the broader success of Lustre technology for HPC,” said Sarp Oral, president, OpenSFS, Inc. “For the Lustre community, we believe this transaction will benefit users by increasing engagement.“

“The Lustre-based ClusterStor storage solutions enhance Cray’s portfolio to provide its customers end-to-end solutions,” said Amita Potnis, research manager, IDC. “As data sprawl continues, customers can leverage ClusterStor storage solutions to gain insights through machine learning and artificialintelligence across many industries.“

The company has added more than 125 employees and contractors and has assumed customer support obligations associated with the ClusterStor product line. The agreement was previously announced on July 26, 2017.

ClusterStor L300 specifications
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ClusterStor L300N specifications
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Read also:
Cray Takes Over Seagate ClusterStor Business
Expects to add more than 100 Seagate employees and contractors.
2017.07.31 | Press Release