Highly scalable system and intelligent data management tools ease explosive data growth

BlueArc is working to provide complete compatibility of BlueArc network storage with next-generation sequencing tools made by Illumina, a world leader in genetic analysis technology and services.

As next-generation sequencers enable faster, more frequent and more affordable sequencing experiments to be conducted, and more post processing analysis to be performed, a greater magnitude of data is produced than that of previous generation systems. Research institutions need a storage infrastructure that can grow with their research and ease management of data to avoid disruption to the data-intensive computational workflows.

"Instrument requirements are fairly easy to model and plan for; the more difficult challenge is accurately estimating what researchers are going to do with the data downstream. Collaborative research efforts, clever data mash-ups and near-constant slicing and dicing of NGS datasets are driving capacity and capability requirements in ways that are difficult to predict," said Chris Dagdigian, principal consultant at BioTeam, an independent consulting firm that specializes in high performance IT for research.  “Users today need to consider a much broader spectrum of requirements when investing in storage solutions. With research protocols changing faster than the underlying IT infrastructure, finding solutions capable of satisfying near-constant change in application requirements becomes essential."

BlueArc provides research institutions with a shared network data storage and management solution that provides robust performance and easily scales to accommodate the growing data from next-generation sequencing workflows. Its unique object-based file system makes it highly efficient at processing metadata, providing the necessary means for sequential reads in addition to capabilities to handle the increasingly mixed file system workloads that future proof an organization’s storage solution. Additionally, BlueArc offers critical performance to feed high-throughput computational workflows and a portfolio of intelligent data management tools to help storage administrators and IT managers easily manage and migrate data over its lifetime.

“Illumina is at the forefront of developing next-generation sequencers that accelerate genome research and enable a richer set of data to be produced per sequence experiment, in turn, offering greater insight into the biological systems being studied,” said Mike Gustafson, CEO of BlueArc. “BlueArc provides research institutions with a robust, scalable storage platform and intelligent management solution that allows them to avoid the headaches of data management in genome research.”