Lustre at Dell Overview

Jeffrey B. Layton, Ph.D. (Jeffrey_Layton@Dell.com)

Dell HPC Solutions

www.dell.com/hpc | www.dellhpcsolutions.com

Confidential

Dell HPCConfidential2

Dell’s Approach to HPC Storage

• Flexibility– Flexibility in performance, scalability, price, and availability

• Dell is delivering solutions using two approaches:– Complete solutions - Fully vetted, tested, supported

› Come with end-to-end support from Dell and partners› Detailed documentation including best practices, performance and

sizing guidance › Deployment services if necessary

– Roll-it-your-own› Dell creates technical whitepapers containing:

– Recommended configurations– Details on configuration– Best practices and sizing guidance

› Customer buys hardware and uses whitepapers as a reference guide› Limited or no Dell support or deployment services

Dell HPC3 Confidential

Dell HPC Storage SolutionsPositioning by Size and Workload

Sca

le

Local data, Home directories

Workstation

Workgroup

Department

SuperComputer

NFS:Dell NSS

Custom Solutions

Application Data and Scratch Space

* Conceptual, not to scale

~1 GB/s

Division

NFS:Dell NSS

Scratch-Space: Dell | Terascala

HSS

Throughput

Arc

hiv

e

Data Archiving

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The DELL | Terascala HPC Storage Solution (DT-HSS3)• Full Lustre solution, fully configured, tested,

tuned, and deployed– On-site installation with client deployment and

training included– Standard 3 years of support

• Redundant, highly available solution• Simple, linear scalability

– 3+ GB/s of throughput per base object solution (redundant), linearly scalable

– Pre-defined configurations from 48TB to 336 TB in a single rack – (building blocks)

– Configurations serve as building blocks for larger and faster solutions.

• Full management system with easy to use GUI including monitoring– Based on Dell iDRAC– Software/Firmware upgrade from tool

MetaData Server (MDS)

Base OSS

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DT-HSS3 Management Console

• Java based GUI console– Downloadable demo at

www.Terascala.com

• Why a GUI?– Reduced complexity

– Provides all file system administration interaction needed via button clicks

– Commands issued to Lustre in the correct order

– Single pane of glass to provide system overview and status updates for all components of the appliance

– “At a glance” monitoring

RedundantMetadata

RedundantObject

2 Controllersw/ 48TB

2 Expansionsw/ 48TB

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DT-HSS3: Pre-defined configurations

SM

L

Capacity(TB)

XL

(MDS)

(OSS)

Total U 16U 20U 24U 32U 40U 30U 38U Custom

Raw Capacity 48TB 96TB 144TB 240TB 336TB 192TB 288TB Custom(PB+)

Estimated Peak Performance

3+ GB/s 3+ GB/s 3+ GB/s 3+ GB/s 3+ GB/s 6+ GB/s 6+ GB/s Custom3+ GB/s

Redundant (HA) MDS and OSS!

XS

Professional Servicesfor upgrades:• Performance• Capacity

S-EP

M-EP

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DT-HSS3 Summary

• Full Redundancy (HA) in a Lustre Appliance Model– MDS and OSS

• Modular configurations– Scales in terms of capacity and performance

– From 48TB’s to PB’s!

– This includes 3 years of support and installation!

• Seven pre-defined configurations:– 4 of the 7 offerings are at or under $1/GB at capacity

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The Dell | Terascala HPC Storage Solution

(DT-HSS3)

Roll-it-Your-Own

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Dell/Cambridge HPC Centre

• Run by Dr. Paul Caleja at Cambridge• Lots of projects. For example:

– Developing Lustre configurations/solutions along with whitepapers with all of the details.

• Lustre on Dell MD3000 storage– Active/Passive MDS

› DRBD between two servers– Active/Active OSS with shared storage

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Upcoming Dell/Cambridge Lustre Paper

• Update to paper

• Same basic configuration as before with some changes:– 6 Gbps SAS storage

– More recent Dell servers with Intel processors

– QDR InfiniBand

• Currently available as a technical bullentin

Dell HPC11 Confidential

Summary

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Summary

• Flexibility– Flexibility in performance, scalability, price, and availability

• Dell follows two paths to HPC storage:– Complete solutions

– Roll-it-your-own

• We have a range of storage solutions– NSS (NFS based storage)

– HSS (fast-scratch)

– HSM

• For Lustre based solutions:– Complete Solutions: DT|HSS-3

– Roll-it-your-own: Dell/Cambridge Solution Centre papers