ACRI-ST expands Quantum Scale-out Storage for 8PB Archive Project

Quantum Corp. has announced that ACRI-ST has extended its Quantum scale-out storage environment to provide the foundation for a new 8 PB archive project. ACRI-ST has now built on StorNext solution to support the European Space Agency’s Earth Observation Data Archiving Service (EODAS). EODAS archives satellite-based research data for past and current agency missions as well as third-party missions.

ACRI-ST enables scientists, university researchers, government agencies and other organizations around the world to draw from more than 20 years of data. It also offers processing services to help streamline research. In 2014, ACRI-ST deployed a StorNext multi-tier storage solution to manage the massive increase in data resulting from ESA’s launch of the Sentinel-3 satellite.

“The mix of disk and tape in a single environment gives us the best of both worlds,” said Gilbert Barrot, CIO at ACRI-ST. “We can keep a cache of data immediately available on disk while storing most of the repository on more economical tape. Our in-house researchers can access the files they need on their own, even when data resides on tape, and they’ve been very happy with the response time.”

In 2016, ACRI-ST won a bid to support EODAS, which meant it had to expand its archive service to provide 8 PB of capacity ― 6 PB for historical data and 2 PB for live missions. ACRI-ST scaled its existing archive environment in France and built a nearly identical environment in Luxembourg through its subsidiary adwaïsEO (hosting data center in Betzdorf) that serves as the main archive site. Both the France and Luxembourg sites include a Quantum tape library and a StorNext-powered Xcellis workflow storage system which facilitates high-performance data ingest and retrieval while providing integrated protection and archive data management. In France there is also an active vault configuration to enhance data accessibility and durability for minimal cost. In addition, ACRI-ST uses Quantum Extended Data Life Management (EDLM) capabilities, which automatically detect potential problems with tape media and move data from the suspect tape to another one.

At the ISC High Performance 2017 conference in Frankfurt, Germany (June 18-22), Quantum is highlighting storage solutions for HPC environments, including the type of multi-tier storage deployed by ACRI-ST.