NetApp Targets HPC With Expanded E-Series Storage

NetApp (NTAP) is targeting big data and high performance computing customers with an expansion of its E-Series storage platform, featuring a new E5500 model promising to improve scale, density and uptime.

NetApp  announced the new NetApp E5500, designed to provide improved performance, efficiency, and reliability for big data and high-performance computing (HPC). As a seventh generation E-Series platform the E5500 provides a robust high-performance architecture, improved storage density, and additional support enhancements. The new E5500 has a modular architecture that can be used with file systems, such as Lustre and Hadoop, to scale to unlimited performance efficiently.  The NetApp AutoSupport tool is now available for the E-Series product line, providing improved service and uptime to customers.

"HPC and big data customers need high performance to ingest and analyze huge amounts of data, while still managing power and cost efficiently," said Brendon Howe, vice president, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp. "High performance at a reasonable cost can be a difficult balance to strike; however, with over 500,000 E-Series systems deployed, NetApp's deep industry and storage experience created a strong foundation for the new E5500. The momentum of E-Series enabled us to build a new product that provides industry-leading bandwidth per dollar spent while improving density and reliability."

The SGI InfiniteStorage 5600, which is an OEM version of the NetApp E5500, has produced a new SPC-2 result confirming the performance and cost efficiency of the new E5500. "Our customers are turning massive amounts of data into new business and scientific discoveries, so they need solutions that provide the best price/performance possible," said Jose Reinoso, vice president, Storage Engineering at SGI. "With SGI's impressive new SPC-2 result achieving a SPC-2 best price/performance, it's clear that the NetApp E5500 meets those expectations. The results clearly show that the E5500 provides organizations the high bandwidth and density needed to address big data and HPC challenges."

Bull also uses the E5500 for a storage system on its supercomputers. "The research carried out on the HPC systems of the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing at the TU Dresden comprises numerous disciplines, each with their own storage requirements," said Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nagel, director of the center. "Our new supercomputer, delivered by Bull, uses the new NetApp E5500 as the base for an excellent storage system that will allow our researchers to get their results faster. The enhanced reliability features and the performance analysis possibilities significantly increase our capabilities to support the users. We are already using NetApp FAS systems for central IT services at the TU Dresden and are happy that the AutoSupport feature has also been extended to the E-Series products."