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CHATSWORTH, Calif. — A storage appliance from the data storage company DDN is being used by the U.S. federal government for a supercomputing program.
The Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) is deploying DDN EXAScaler ES400X appliances in conjunction with Penguin Computing’s TrueHPC supercomputing platform, according to DDN last month.
The EXAScaler ES400X appliances will be integrated at the Navy DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC) and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) DoD Supercomputing Resource Center.
The DDN-Penguin supercomputing systems for the Navy DSRC and AFRL DSRC are expected to enter production service early in 2022.
The systems, using storage, memory, and processing technologies, are designed to enhance the HPCMP’s capability to support their science and technology, test and evaluation, and acquisition engineering communities.
The Navy DSRC system uses 26 PB of DDN’s EXAScaler storage, including 4 PB of Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)-based flash storage and 22 PB of hard disk drive (HDD)-based storage for long-term data.
The AFRL DSRC system, supported by over 20 PB of DDN’s EXAScaler storage, enables high-performance data analytics as well as adds to the HPCMP’s capability to support DoD artificial intelligence (AI) requirements.
DDN has also deployed multi-petabyte systems to support the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). The deployments support their programs by supplying systems designed to “address complex workloads and diverse resource demands.”
“Our DoD customers are dealing with extremely complex data models to conduct their advanced research,” said Jeff Jordan, VP of federal sales at DDN.
He said DDN is getting key storage technology into the hands of users that are “driving research, development, and operational projects and increasing their productivity.”
“It’s gratifying to see these systems used to help the DoD meet its mission in confronting massive challenges,” Jordan said.
Sid Mair, president of Penguin Computing, said the company is “pleased” to partner with DDN to deliver systems that will help the DoD in “their pursuit of solutions to the most challenging science and technology questions.”
