NASA will use the SGI InfiniteStorage data migration facility (DMF) solution to move older data files to a tape archive, making the much faster disk space self-managing. The DMF implementation ultimately will allow the agency to archive and manage 40 petabytes of information-an amount equal to approximately 2,000 times the size of the entire print collection of the US Library of Congress.
SGI InfiniteStorage DMF will help NASA adapt to its changing data access patterns. With DMF, NASA can define the data migration policy necessary to always keep high priority information close at hand, while lower priority information is seamlessly migrated to tape.
Alan Powers, high-end computing lead at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility, said: From satellite images of our home planet to simulating airflows over new wing designs, NASA research projects can regularly generate multiple terabytes of data. As our archives grow, so does the challenge of managing and migrating that information to the appropriate storage system. A sophisticated data management facility is an essential enhancement to NASA, allowing us to keep the most requested information accessible when we need it, while efficiently moving the rest to tape archives for future use or reference.
