General Atomics Wins $22.5 Million DoD Contract for Storage Lifecycle Management (SLM) Across Six High Performance Computing Sites

General Atomics' Nirvana division has been awarded a multi-year, multi-site project by the High Performance Computing Modernization Program Office (HPCMPO) of the US Department of Defense (DoD). Valued at $22.5 million over ten years, the contract calls for implementation and operation of an SLM federation spanning six DoD Supercomputing Resource Centers (DSRCs) throughout the United States. The federation will initially have 29 Petabytes (PB) of data under management including disaster recovery (DR).

The sites include the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL DSRC), Wright-Patterson AFB, OH; Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC DSRC), Fairbanks, AK; US Army Research Laboratory (ARL DSRC), Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC DSRC), Vicksburg, MS; Navy DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (NAVY DSRC), Stennis Space Center, MS; and Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC DSRC), Kihei, Maui, HI.

In support of the DoD HPCMPO, General Atomics will provide server hardware, Oracle-based Metadata catalogs, Nirvana SRB federating and information lifecycle management (ILM) software, Sun SAM-QFS hierarchical storage management (HSM) software, training, support, and implementation services. The HPCMP contract calls for the purchase and maintenance of commercially-supported SLM software combining ILM and HSM to support the data file management and archival requirements of the DSRCs.

Responsible to the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Science and Technology), the HPCMPO serves the DoD Research and Development and Simulation and Test Communities by providing supercomputer services, high-speed network communications and computational science expertise.

The term of the contract is four-years, valued at $10.1 million, with six one-year options to renew, and was awarded by the General Services Administration in Birmingham, AL. General Atomics will be supported by teammates Sun Microsystems Federal of McLean, VA; Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and its HPC Center of Excellence in Dayton, OH; and Cipher Solutions of Raleigh, NC.