SC98 - Objectivity ships HPSS for petabyte data retrieval

Orlando, 10 November 98 Objectivity announced the availability of its interface for the new High Performance Storage System (HPSS) hierarchical storage management (HSM) system software. HPSS is a collaborative project of government, academia, and industry, providing the capability to move very large data objects among high performance computers, workstation clusters, and storage libraries at speeds many times faster than was possible in pre-HPSS days. The product has been in testing by The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland and others.

Objectivity's HPSS interface is the first of a series of interfaces planned for leading storage management systems built on a new framework called Objectivity Open File System (OOFS). Objectivity's Open File System is designed to facilitate the use of Objectivity/DB with advanced storage management systems.

Objectivity claims to be the first database provider to deliver an HPSS interface to very large database (VLDB) users. HPSS uses a unique "media access optimization" technique whereby the interface maintains the availability of the application's database for all users during the search process. Searches of the HPSS system may include Petabytes of data stored on disk or tape drives. To optimize this access, Objectivity Open File System provides capabilities such as client messaging and flexible data location capabilities to maximize user productivity and application performance.

Objectivity's support for HPSS requires no changes to any program written for storage on non-HPSS systems. In addition, the distributed architecture of Objectivity/DB means that HPSS does not have to be implemented on all servers in the federation, this decision may be made on a server-by-server basis. Objectivity/DB integration with the HPSS test suite at SLAC occurred during October, 1997 and the product has been in testing at a number of VLDB customer sites worldwide, including The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland.

"The BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) will begin producing hundreds of terabytes of data in early 1999 and our scientists are eagerly awaiting the data-analysis capability that only the combination of HPSS and Objectivity/DB could provide," said Richard Mount, Director of Computing Services.

"Experiments at CERN will produce hundreds of TB of data per year at data rates up to 35MB/second starting in 1999," states Jamie Shiers, Project Leader at CERN. "Experience from the use of Objectivity/DB and HPSS on these experiments will help us understand how we can cope with the staggering 100PB of data at rates up to 1.5GB/second expected at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, starting in 2005."

"The size of CERN's database is bigger than any numbers ever seen," according to Richard Winter, president of Winter Corp., a Boston-based consultancy specializing in VLDBs. "The growing use of non-traditional data types is producing a produce a giant leap in database size. Such databases will soon be commonplace in engineering, commercial, and medical fields as well," concludes Winter.

The Objectivity Open File System (OOFS) provides a customizable interface between Objectivity/DB and high-end storage solutions. Objectivity/DB's ability to easily deal with Petabytes of data in application areas such as High Energy Physics brings about the need to intelligently connect to hierarchical storage systems. Modern storage systems provide the ability to transparently move information from high- speed disks to lower-cost tape systems. The Objectivity Open File System provides client messaging and flexible data location capabilities in conjunction with modules provided by storage system suppliers and customer application engineers. The Objectivity Open File System is an optional feature of Objectivity/DB Release 5.

HPSS is a collaborative project of government, academia, and industry to develop the HSM of choice for high-speed storage of, and equally high- speed access to, very large volumes of data.

HPSS collaboration members are Brookhaven National Laboratory, Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Centre de Calcul de l'Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules (CC-IN2P3), CEA/Centre d'Etudes de Bruyeres-le-Chatel, Compaq Computer Corp/CERN, IBM, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Maui High Performance Computer Center, NASA Langley Research Center, NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, San Diego Supercomputer Center, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, StorageTek, University of Maryland, University of Stuttgart, and University of Washington. For additional information on HPSS refer to the collaboration's web site at www.sdsc.edu/hpss &user_ref=4608" target="new">www.sdsc.edu/hpss.

Ad Emmen