PHYSICS

Finisar Corp., a leading provider of network performance tools and fiber optic subsystems, announced today that the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) has selected Finisar's NetWisdom and Xgig storage area network (SAN) analysis tools to help monitor and maintain its 500 Terabyte SAN infrastructure. SDSC is using Finisar's NetWisdom SAN traffic monitoring system to conduct data collection and trending analysis and to provide end-to-end monitoring and analysis of all the switches and devices in its SAN fabric. NetWisdom enables SDSC to view critical data about its SAN performance and provides a single correlated view of overall network traffic, helping minimize network downtime through early detection of hidden errors at great levels of detail. In addition, SDSC is using Xgig, Finisar's Fibre Channel & Gigabit Ethernet SAN analysis solution, to identify problem areas and streamline resolution of events causing performance issues. Xgig enables SDSC to automatically analyze captured traces for errant behaviors and provides extensive performance analysis capabilities. Massive Heterogeneous SAN Environment San Diego Supercomputer Center’s SAN environment supports the TeraGrid project, a multi-year effort to build and deploy the world’s largest, most comprehensive distributed infrastructure for open scientific research. Today, SDSC operates powerful high-end computing resources led by a new system named Data Star. It has 1408 Power4 processors in 176 IBM P655’s and 352 Power4 processors in 11 IBM P690’s. This system has a 10 TeraFlop peak. SDSC utilizes a large SAN fabric to connect the computing clusters and three different types of Sun storage systems. "In a large, multi vendor SAN environment such as ours, it is extremely difficult to track down the source of problems -- wherever it might be occurring in the enterprise," said SDSC's Don Thorp, group lead, SAN and server infrastructure. "With Finisar's solutions in place, we are able to trace problems and provide proof that an issue exists -- and just as importantly -- whose problem it is. At that point, we initiate a trouble ticket specific to the appropriate vendor." According to Mike Karp, senior analyst with Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), who focuses on storage and storage management, as the interrelationship between IT systems gets more complex, the ability to monitor and analyze the points at which the various systems intersect with one another is crucial. "The ability to identify the root cause of any problem that appears in storage environments is key as EMA believes it is at these points that systems are failing," Karp said. "There is nothing worse for an IT department to receive than a slew of trouble tickets that tell them there is a problem but offer no hint as to the problem's cause," Karp added. "Finisar's SAN monitoring and analysis tools address this issue, providing a quality solution for cost-effectively ensuring SAN performance and uptime."