SDSC Announces Scalable, High-Performance Data Storage Cloud

San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) SDSC Cloud UC San Diego Arista Networks OpenStack SDSC Announces Scalable, High-Performance Data Storage Cloud - Web-based System Offers High Durability, Security, and Speed for Diverse User Base September 22, 2011 By Jan Zverina - The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego, today announced the launch of what is believed to be the largest academic-based cloud storage system in the U.S., specifically designed for researchers, students, academics, and industry users who require stable, secure, and cost-effective storage and sharing of digital information, including extremely large data sets. "We believe that the SDSC Cloud may well revolutionize how data is preserved and shared among researchers, especially massive datasets that are becoming more prevalent in this new era of data-intensive research and computing," said Michael Norman, director of SDSC. "The SDSC Cloud goes a long way toward meeting federal data sharing requirements, since every data object has a unique URL and could be accessed over the Web." SDSC's new Web-based system is 100% disk-based and interconnected by high-speed 10 gigabit Ethernet switching technology, providing extremely fast read and write performance. With an initial raw capacity of 5.5 petabytes - one petabyte equals one quadrillion bytes of storage capacity, or the equivalent about 250 billion pages of text - the SDSC Cloud has sustained read rates of 8 to 10 gigabytes (GB) per second that will continually improve as more nodes and storage are added.