IBM brings supercomputing storage into the cloud

IBM has announced a new network storage array that was based around its supercomputing platforms down to enterprise level.

The Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) system uses between one and 30 storage ‘pods,’ containing a storage node, a storage controller and attached 15,000 or 7,200 drives. These can be scaled up to a claimed 14.4 petabytes of storage.

“Every day, the equivalent of eight-times the information that exists in all US libraries combined is created,” said Doug Balog, vice president of disk systems for IBM.

“Companies not only need to cost-effectively store that data, but they need to rapidly locate it and provide ubiquitous access to it instantly. SONAS addresses these needs and provide clients with the right scalable solution.”

The technology behinds SONAS was originally developed as part of General Parallel File System (GPFS), which the company has used on its supercomputing platform for around ten years.

SONAS also comes with an integrated Tivoli Storage Manager backup/archive client, up to 256 snapshots per file system, and support for modern RAID systems and network protocols, including CIFS, NFS, the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), HTTP and FTP.