APPLICATIONS

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Today, SGI and LightSand announced a breakthrough in providing instant access to terascale data with the successful testing of a high-speed multi-operating system shared filesystem over a wide area network (WAN). This demonstration has never before been accomplished. This capability allows geographically distributed organizations to collaborate and combine their large-scale, multiplatform computational and storage resources. It provides immense capability to solve very large and complex problems in energy, manufacturing, the sciences, and government and defense. Based on the SGI® CXFSTM shared filesystem technology and using LightSand S-600 SONET gateways, the companies demonstrated unprecedented data-sharing capabilities in a single shared filesystem environment over a simulated distance of up to 8,000 km (4,971 miles). This breakthrough will provide geographically unlimited high-speed data-sharing capabilities, enhancing workflow, increasing productivity and reducing costs in data-intensive environments by eliminating file duplication and the time it takes to move large files over the network, across campus, across country and ultimately around the world. SGI CXFS enables multiple computers running different operating systems--SGI® IRIX®, Windows NT®, Windows® 2000 and SunTM SolarisTM--to directly access a single shared 64-bit filesystem within a SAN and a WAN. "We are very excited about this accomplishment and are looking forward to exploring the capabilities of this technology further with LightSand and our customers," said Gabriel Broner, vice president of engineering, SGI. "In one breakthrough, we are taking shared data access from the campus and expanding it to the country. By significantly expanding the geographic reach of data access, SGI is maintaining its focus on accelerating customers' workflow to improve productivity." "SGI and LightSand are the first to demonstrate the true scalability of a shared multi-OS filesystem operating in geographically separated locations," said Gregg Pugmire, LightSand's vice president of business development. "As we develop this capability further, we expect to find a number of scenarios where it will simplify the management and deployment of storage area networks for our customers." A geographically distributed Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) with shared files is unprecedented and allows users to share a single filesystem in a multi-OS environment over great distances, delivering fast unified access for data-intensive workflows while maintaining data integrity. This long-distance SAN technology addresses two fundamental challenges of data management: fast access to common information for geographically separate systems and seamless integration of multiple operating systems. The successful test of a shared filesystem over a WAN demonstrates the potential for fast, shared data access in a grid computing environment and the potential for improving utilization of computing resources over a network. "The shared file system has the potential to be a great enabling technology for storage and data management in grid computing environments around the world," said SGI's Walter Stewart, global coordinator for grid computing strategy. "Dynamic, high-performance, shared data access for diverse and globally distributed users will allow for full utilization of the grid." By linking multiple geographically distributed organizations into one overall SAN that exists over a wide area network, an organization can improve its workflow on a global basis and more effectively utilize its storage capacity to obtain significant cost savings. To the user, the data is still accessed from one shared filesystem, even though the data is actually being accessed from a significant distance. How it Works SGI CXFS shared filesystem technology is the cornerstone of SGI® SAN solutions. To enable the WAN implementation, LightSand provided its S-600 gateway, which efficiently transports both Fibre Channel and IP data across the wide area network. This revolutionary device provides higher throughput than any other WAN gateway and dramatically exceeds the performance of any system that uses routed IP across the WAN. During the initial test, two groups of SGI® Origin® 300 servers were connected via Fibre Channel to SGI® TP9400 disk arrays, creating two separate data centers that were linked using the LightSand S-600 gateway. A WAN simulator operated as a delay line to add the effects of latency to the test. The performance was measured with each Origin 300 server controlling disk arrays at the opposite data center, which resulted in a one-way disk I/O or data access speed in excess of 60MB per second at a distance of 1,000 km. The combined disk I/O was greater than 120MB per second across the wide area network. Wide area network shared files provide the next major step in the maturity of SANs by allowing engineers and scientists in geographically distributed organizations to effectively share a single copy of a file across the country. This removes the wait time inherent in traditional file-sharing methods such as FTP file transfers. Removal of this bottleneck will allow SGI's customers in manufacturing, government and defense, energy, the sciences, and media to effectively use their key resources, wherever they are, to more quickly develop products and capabilities for their core businesses. SGI, LightSand and Marconi to Provide Live Demonstration At Supercomputing 2002, Nov. 19 to 21 in Baltimore, Md., SGI will work with several other companies to demonstrate this technological breakthrough. The demonstrations will be running during all show hours, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday. At SGI booth #1521, SGI will connect the LightSand SONET gateways and a distance simulator to an SGI SAN ServerTM 1000 system and run an SGI workstation from a simulated distance of up to 5,000 miles. Images will be accessed and manipulated to illustrate the performance capabilities of shared files over a WAN. Representatives from SGI, LightSand and Marconi will participate in a live demonstration of a geographically distributed storage area network that will take place in Marconi booth #1113. An SGI® Onyx® family system will be running a satellite imagery application in the Marconi booth. The Onyx family system will be a CXFS client linked over the Advanced Technology Demonstration Network (ATDnet) to the database residing on a CXFS storage area network at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which is located about 50 miles away in Washington, DC. Site-to-site connectivity will be provided using the LightSand OC-48 SONET gateway and the new Marconi BXR-4800, a 480Gb-per-second multiservice switch-router, and the new Marconi OC-192c ATM interface. The Onyx family system will interact with the data as if it were stored locally on its own disks.