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Data Access
New Addition to the IRIS Data Management Center
by Rick Braman
50TB Isilon IQ6000 Network Attached Storage Device |
In order to improve shipping times for Tier 1 data to its customers, the IRIS
Data Management Center, in Seattle, has recently deployed a new large scale
mass storage RAID based system. This system is a 50TB Isilon IQ6000 Network
Attached Storage (NAS) device. The addition of this system will allow
for all Tier1 data to be kept online, with only backup copies written to nearline
tape based storage. This will greatly speed up the process of data request
handling, and reduce the amount of tape based storage needed to protect the
IRIS data holdings. 
The Isilon IQ6000 is a clustered storage system, meaning that each node of
storage comes complete with its own processors, memory, communication paths,
and disks.
The current nodes, shown at right, are based on 500GB disk drives and hold
a total of 6TB of data. Each node in the cluster communicates with the
other nodes via a high speed Infiniband™ backend network, which allows
for easy expansion and performance stability. The IQ6000 represents the
4th generation of the Isilon product line. Isilon keeps the OS and OneFS™ filesystem
compatible across all generations of their nodes, which allows for very easy
migration to newer, greater capacity storage. As newer version nodes
become available, they are simply added to the cluster and the OS will restripe
all data across them. If rack space is at a premium, the OS is instructed
to remove a node, and after the data is re-striped across the remaining nodes,
it is just unplugged and removed from the rack. The current maximum capacity
is 250TB, but that will increase as disk sizes increase.
IRIS plans on growing the capacity of this system to match annual data ingestion rates. In the future, we will no longer need to keep multiple sorted versions of Tier 1 data, which account for the bulk of all data that IRIS regularly ships to customers. All Tier 2 data will continue to be archived to nearline tape based storage, as it is voluminous and infrequently requested.
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The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology is a consortium of over 150 research institutions with major commitments to research in seismology and related fields. IRIS operates a facilities program in observational seismology and data management sponsored by the National Science Foundation through its Division of Earth Sciences. |  |