Boston Ltd Releasing Panasas ActiveStor Ultra Storage System Distribution to Customers Throughout EMEA, APAC and USA

HPC integration specialists Boston Ltd. (Boston, MA) has completed testing and certification of the Panasas, Inc.‘s ActiveStor Ultra product line, readying the turnkey HPC storage appliance for distribution to its customer base throughout EMEA, APAC and USA.

ActiveStor Ultra features PanFS, a fast parallel file system at any price point. Boston is a distributor and integrator for ActiveStor Ultra, providing customized HPC product and service solutions including installation, configuration and support services globally.

The ActiveStor Ultra HPC appliance runs the PanFS parallel file system on Supermicro commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, using a balanced set of HDDs, a SATA SSD, an NVMe SSD, DRAM, and an NVDIMM to deliver an integrated HPC storage solution that optimizes performance and cost per gigabyte. PanFS utilizes Adaptive Small Component Acceleration (ASCA) to intelligently place files on the optimal storage tier based on file size, and adjusts dynamically as the workload evolves, meaning the system automatically adapts to workload and user changes without any tuning.

“We help our clients make informed decisions about new technologies by thoroughly testing and evaluating the latest high-performance server and storage solutions,” said David Power, CTO, Boston. “Panasas has changed the HPC storage landscape with the reengineered PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra delivered on Supermicro COTS hardware, by providing a combination of superior price performance and industry-leading reliability in a plug-and-play storage appliance.“

Boston confirmed the performance of the PanFS parallel file system on ActiveStor Ultra using Interleaved or Random (IOR) benchmarks and also ran real world application tests to verify production readiness of the Panasas solution. Using OpenFOAM Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software, Boston compared the execution times of 50 iterations of a 125 million cell external aerodynamics simulation. Analysis of the log files allowed the I/O performance to be separated from the compute time, showing that PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra outperformed a traditional NAS by a factor of 4, practically halving the simulation run time and approaching speeds typically associated with non-resilient solid-state scratch systems.

Click to enlarge

ActiveStor Ultra specs

“We are very pleased to advance our strategic partnership with Boston Limited, one of the leading HPC integrators,” said Phil Crocker, senior director, business development and global channels, Panasas. “Boston’s strong technical skills combined with their reputation for delivering quality HPC solutions to their customers makes them an ideal partner for Panasas.“

Boston is offering the ActiveStor Ultra HPC storage appliance for an introductory price of €200.000 or £175,000 for 2PB and 20GB/s through September 30, 2020, including 3-yearf support.

Resource:
Video: Introducing Panasas ActiveStor Ultra

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ISC: Panasas Adds Boston Limited
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June 18, 2019 | Press Release