Data Management Solutions

Cray offers industry leading data management and storage technologies and selects the best combination of functionality and price performance for each customer project. This flexibility, delivered through our customer engineering team, ensures customers always have access to the best storage and data management technologies from Cray and our partners.

External Services File System – Using Lustre®

The standard implementation of a Lustre file system on a Cray XT supercomputer is on nodes dedicated to a specific role as Object Storage Server (OSS) or Metadata Server™ (MDS). This implementation within the Cray XT system limits the options for some customers who want to share Lustre data, use it without accessing the Cray XT system, or easily back it up when required. Network File System (NFS) transfer over 1/10 GbE to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system is a typical solution for exporting Lustre from the Cray XT system - but this approach can be constrained by both bandwidth and cost considerations.

An alternative implementation of Lustre for the Cray XT system has emerged at some Cray sites. This ‘external Lustre’ employs independent Linux® servers as OSS and MDS nodes, working with dedicated Cray XT SIO nodes configured to function as Lustre networking routers in Cray Linux Environment™ (CLE) 2.2. Instead of hosting the Lustre file system internally, the Cray XT system becomes a client to an external Lustre file system. Cray Custom Engineering refers to this new implementation as an External Services File System (esFS).

External Services File System

External Services Data Mover

The standard implementation of a Lustre file system on Cray XT supercomputer nodes can limit the options available to customers for sharing and protecting data. Network File System (NFS) transfer over a 1GbE network to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system has been the most popular solution, but this approach can be constrained by both bandwidth and cost considerations. Recent qualification of a 10GbE XT system interface addresses the bandwidth constraint, but the cost of a high performance NAS system can still be out of scope for the requirements of some customers.

Cray Custom Engineering now offers a lower cost alternative for sharing and backup of Lustre data, using a specially configured client known as External Services Data Mover (esDM). Cray Linux Environment™ (CLE) 2.2 supports Lustre LNET routing on a specially configured SIO blade. The Lustre LNET router allows an external Lustre client to mount Cray XT Lustre file systems, to share data, and copy data to other media including disk, tape and VTL. The SIO blade is configured with a PCI Express riser and an InfiniBand (IB) Host Channel Adapter (HCA).

External Services Data Mover

External Services Login

Cray Inc. designed the XT5 supercomputer to provide extreme scalability by optimizing each component of the system (compute, network, software, infrastructure and IO). Optimized compute nodes deliver the computational performance while optimized service nodes provide system and I/O connectivity. Some of the service nodes also serve as login nodes from which users compile and launch jobs.

In response, Cray’s Custom Engineering has introduced the External Services Login server to provide expanded functionality and greater flexibility for user login environments on Cray XT systems with the following user productivity benefits:

Capability to attach to multiple Cray XT systems and partitions
Ability to work should the Cray XT become unavailable
Availability of local processing, memory, and IO options

External Services Login