Tape in High Performance Tape in High Performance

Computing EnvironmentsComputing EnvironmentsRolf Lange SpectraLogicRolf Lange SpectraLogic

Organisations using disk-only storage

Rethinking Disk & Tape Strategies…Rethinking Disk & Tape Strategies…

Plan to start using tape

for long-term archiving 68%

Decreased

last year

13%

Plan to start using tape

for interim storage 58%

•Media &

Entertainment

•Healthcare

•High

Performance

Computing

•Life Sciences

•Surveillance

Source: Fleishman-Hillard Research for the Linear Tape Open (LTO) Program

for long-term archiving 68%

• Cost• Density• Energy Consumption• Performance• Security

• Persistence/lifespan• Portability• Reliability

“Tape has been shifting from its historical role of serving as a medium dedicated primarily to short-term backup, to a medium that addresses a much broader set of data storage goals, including:– active archive (the most promising segment of market

growth),

2011 INSIC Tape Applications System Report2011 INSIC Tape Applications System Report

growth),

– regulatory compliance (approximately 20% - 25% of all business data created must be retained to meet compliance requirements for a specified and often lengthy period), and

– disaster recovery, which continues in its traditional requirements as a significant use of tape.”

Active Archive provides an affordable, online

solution to access and store all created data.

An archive that contains production data, no

Active ArchiveActive Archive

An archive that contains production data, no

matter how old or infrequently accessed, that

can still be retrieved online. It may exist on

both disk and tape.

4

Active Archive

Extended File

System

Disk Arrays

Memory Systems

� Speed of access

� Cost

� Energy consumption

Disk Will Be SqueezedDisk Will Be Squeezed

2011 2020

Disk Arrays

Tape

� Cost

� Energy consumption

� Long term archive

� Security

• Extreme scalability for single system active archive

• Performance – Scalable drive counts for very high throughputs

– Multiple robots to support high daily cartridge exchanges

– Optional ‘enterprise’ drive support

• Reliability– Tape read reliability

– Media lifecycle management

Tape Requirements for HPC environmentsTape Requirements for HPC environments

– Media lifecycle management

– Media replication, RAIT

• System Redundancy & Serviceability– Robot, robotic interface, robotic controller, PSUs, dual port drives, global hot

spare drives, assisted self maintenance

• Storage Density

• Energy Consumption

• Cost per TB

Specifications Specifications –– Drive ModelsDrive Models

Feature IBM TS1140 Oracle T10000 C LTO-5

Capacity (Native) 4.0 TB 5.0 TB 1.5 TB

Transfer Rate (Native)250 MB/s 240 MB/s 140 MB/s

R/W Compatibility • R/W TS1130

• Reformatted TS1120

• R only T10000B

• R only T10000A

• R/W LTO-4

• R only LTO-3

Power Consumption 51 Watts 67 Watts 27 WattsPower Consumption

(No sled)

51 Watts 67 Watts 27 Watts

Interfaces • 8 Gb FC

• FICON*

• 4 Gb FC

• FICON

• 8 Gb FC

• 4 Gb FC

Library Compatibility • IBM TS3500

• IBM TS3400

• IBM TS3494

• Spectra T-Finity

• SL8500

• SL3000

• Spectra Libraries

• IBM Libraries

• Oracle Libraries

• Quantum Libraries

Media Sources Two One Multiple

MTBF 237,000 N / A 250,000

Load / Unload Cycles 300,000 >150,000 100,000

• ≈75% of HPC Market Utilizes Open Tape Technology

• ≈25% of HPC Market Utilizes Proprietary Tape Technology

Tape Drive Technology In UseTape Drive Technology In Use

LTO Tape Roadmap TodayLTO Tape Roadmap Today

http://ultrium.com/technology/roadmap.html

Announced April 14, 2010

January 22, 2010:

• “The scientists at IBM Research – Zurich, in cooperation with the FUJIFILM Corporation of Japan, recorded data onto an advanced prototype tape, at a density of 29.5 billion bits per square inch —about 39 times the areal data density of today's most popular industry-standard magnetic tape product*.

Future of Tape Capability SecuredFuture of Tape Capability Secured

industry-standard magnetic tape product*.

• “These new technologies are estimated to enable cartridge capacities that could hold up to 35 trillion bytes (terabytes) of uncompressed data*.

* http://www.zurich.ibm.com/news/10/storage.html

Density / Capacity Density / Capacity

• Tape - 4.3 PB+ per Sq. M. (Terapackdesign, TS1140 technology)• High Density NAS - 1.5 PB / Sq. M. • 4x – 5x increase in tape density in 5 years (20 TB tapes).

TerapackTerapack

DesignDesign

Areal Density of Hard Disk Areal Density of Hard Disk vsvs TapeTape

EnergyEnergy

“The disk system costs over 25 times more money to power and cool than a

similar tape system.” -Clipper Group, 2007 , (5-year cost comparison to SATA

disk)

Tape and Disk Costs – What it Really Costs to Power the Devices

“The energy cost ratio for a terabyte stored long-term on SATA disk versus “The energy cost ratio for a terabyte stored long-term on SATA disk versus LTO-4 is about 290:1.” -Clipper Group, 2008, (5-year cost comparison to D2D

backup)

Disk and Tape Square off Again – Tape Remains King of the Hill with LTO4

“The cost of energy alone for the average disk based solution exceeds the entire

TCO of the average tape based solution.” “…disk consumes 238 times as

much energy as tape under assumptions that lean toward favoring disk.” -

Clipper Group, (2010, 12-year cost comparison to average disk solution)

In Search of the Long-Term Archiving Solution – Tape Delivers Significant TCO

Over Disk

• Up to 400,000 slots in a library

complex

• Up to 8 Libraries / 16 Robots

• 40 Frames per library

Scalability Scalability -- ExascaleExascale StorageStorage

Skyway Pass-Through

connecting libraries in

complex.

T-Finity library

architecture

supports multi-

library complex.

Reliability has increased 700% over the technology

available a decade earlier

Tape Technologies Are Reliable…Tape Technologies Are Reliable…

• Advances in the coating of tape film

• Read-after-write data verification

• Error correction codes

16

• Error correction codes

• Drive technology features

simplified tape paths and servo

tracking systems

• Spectra tape libraries offer data

integrity verification

Beech, Debbie. “Best Practices for backup and long-term data retention” Sylvatica

Whitepaper. The evolving role of disk and tape in the data center. June 2009

• Tape has the best bit error rate

of any storage medium

ReliabilityReliability-- Orders of Magnitude GreaterOrders of Magnitude Greater

• “Green” tapes have debris

• Debris is typically the result of the manufacturing process – Oxide shedding– Fractured base film (mylar)– Slitting debris

What is Tape Debris?What is Tape Debris?

Enlarged area of tape section.

The large circular contamination is

about 25 μm in diameter, roughly

twice the width of an LTO4 track.

• New tapes are abrasive to the tape drive head surface and

can cause excessive wear and reduce the life span

• Debris contamination is a common cause of

performance problems:

– Poor signal performance can cause temporary data

Known Problems Caused by Tape DebrisKnown Problems Caused by Tape Debris

– Poor signal performance can cause temporary data

errors leading to read/write retries*

– Debris can migrate into data bands, obstructing reading and writing of

data causing retries or permanent data loss *

– Debris accumulation can cause tape to wind unevenly on the spool

leading to tension control problems that cause temporary errors and

retries, or may even cause tape to break*

Source: IBM LTO Media: Optimized for IBM Drives and Automation. The difference is performance

• Tape burnishing removes loose and embedded

particles and smoothes asperities in the tape

• Improves the performance level and prolongs the

life of tape head (verifies the tape surface)

CarbideCleanCarbideClean™ ™ the Spectra Solutionthe Spectra Solution

Complete Media Lifecycle ManagementComplete Media Lifecycle Management

– Very fast tape mounts of RAIT sets (up to over 2x the

speed of non-RAIT sets or non-Terapack libraries

– Protection against damaged, dropped or worn media

– Streaming rate = to number of data tapes in a RAIT set

(up to 8x a non-RAIT stream speed)

TerapackTerapack OptimisedOptimised RAITRAIT

– Available in November from HPSS and Spectra

• Dual Active-Active Robotic Transporters

• Dual Robotics Interface Modules (RIM)

• Dual Robotics Control Module(RCM) Architecture

• Global SpareTM tape drive

High Availability ArchitectureHigh Availability Architecture

• Global SpareTM tape drive

• Redundant Power Paths

• Data Integrity Verification

– PreScan

– QuickScan

– PostScan

• Tape’s purchase cost remains unbeatable for large

systems

– 10 to 15 times less expensive to purchase than disk.

• A 2.7PB tape system will have a cost of around $0.05 to $0.10 per

GB. Larger systems are even lower.

CostCost

• IT grade disk costs about $1.00 GB street price; more for

enterprise class disk

Acquisition Cost

KD1

Folie 24

KD1 Visual comparison of purchase cost of tape vs disk for a few points? 75TB, 250TB, 500TB, 1PB? Kent Dinkel; 22.10.2011

NASA Ames Supercomputing FacilityNASA Ames Supercomputing Facility

NASA Ames Case Study

Achieving Efficiency with Active ArchivAchieving Efficiency with Active Archivee

NASA Ames Case Study

• Pain Points

– Downtime due to media issues

– Maxed out data center floor space utilization

• Goals

Achieving Efficiency with Active ArchiveAchieving Efficiency with Active Archive

• Goals

– Ensure media and data integrity

– Better manage media within the library

– Improve storage density and footprint

– Have all data online, searchable and accessible

Results—NASA benefits greatly by migrating to an Active Archive:

SGI’s DMF and Spectra’s T950 (8 Frame)

– Extended file system capacity on tape

– Reclaimed 1400 sq. ft. of data center space

Achieving Efficiency with Tape and Active Achieving Efficiency with Tape and Active

ArchiveArchive

– Reclaimed 1400 sq. ft. of data center space

– Increased online archive capacity from 12 PB to 32 PB

– Increased data storage reliability

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Results

Achieving Efficiency with Active ArchiveAchieving Efficiency with Active Archive

29

New

Storage

Footprint

• Argonne National Labs

• FMI- Switzerland

• Honeywell

• NASA Ames

• NASA Goddard

• Fermi National Labs

• Sandia National Labs

Sample HPC Customer listSample HPC Customer list

• Sandia National Labs

• Los Alamos National Labs

• Honda Research

• Colsa

• NCSA

• Howard Hughes Medical Center Research

• CERN

• Proven Innovator and History of Success

– Founded in 1979, self-funded, profitable, debt-free growth

– Intelligent integration of complete data protection solutions

– Highest customer satisfaction & support ratings in the

industry

30 Years of Success30 Years of Success

industry

• Gold Standard Manufacturer in Tape Innovation

• Manufacturing in Boulder, Colorado

High

Performance

Computing

17%Education

9%

Other

12%

• Leader in data intensive

verticals:

– HPC, M&E, Federal and Financial

– Require true enterprise solutions

Worldwide MarketsWorldwide Markets

Federal

23%

Media and

Entertainment

25%

Financial

14%• Enterprise R&D flows over to

mid-market

and department level products

• Ranked #1 in 14 out of 14 categories!

– Overall Product Ranking

– Initial Product Quality

– Product Reliability

Product Features

Awards and RecognitionAwards and Recognition

– Product Features

– Technical Support

– Sales-Force Competence

– I Would Buy This Product Again

• Ranked #1 in all 7 categoriesfor Mid-Level and Enterprise!

Thank YouThank You

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