NetApp Secures $2m Supercomputing Partnership with NCI

Software, systems and services company, NetApp, has inked a $2 million deal with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) to provide it with a variety of high performance flash storage solutions.
NCI is an Australian integrated e-infrastructure environment that is funded by the Australian government’s national research infrastructure strategy (NCRIS).
The deal will see NetApp work with Fujitsu to supply and install its NetApp FAS, E-series, and EF all-flash storage arrays with a raw storage capacity of 11 petabytes on the premise. According to NetApp, this will bring NCI’s total raw storage capacity to 44 petabytes and enables it to provide high-end services to Australian researchers, industry, and government.
NetApp A/NZ managing director, Steve Manley, said the win exemplifies how the company works with its customers to create and tailor solutions with their exact requirements in mind.
“The huge demands that NCI will place on these arrays meant that we needed robust solutions to serve their immediate needs and also any future requirements they might have,” he said.
According to NCI director professor, Lindsay Botten, it needed to design a new pod-based storage architecture that can scale seamlessly in predetermined blocks of capacity and throughput as it manages large amounts of customer data.
“As a result of constant growth in data holdings and scientific research projects that often generate and analyse petabytes of data in very short timeframes, we needed such an infrastructure,” Botten said.
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He added that NCI was also looking to make use of SSD enabled storage to deliver faster access to data and a solution that integrates with VMware and OpenStack. “This new infrastructure will allow NCI to deliver high-speed, low latency access to customer data, enhanced virtualisation services and more secure operations.”