SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 Delivers Multi-Gigabyte Real-Time Video Data Streams27 April 2006
Silicon Graphics (OTC Bulletin Board: SGID) today introduced the SGI(R) InfiniteStorage 6700 system explicitly designed to deliver industry-leading throughput of streaming data in real time-up to 3 gigabytes per second (GBps) sustained, for read or write. Targeted at industries such as broadcast, 4K digital intermediate (DI), science and government industries, the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 system's real- time isochronous architecture features 4Gbit Fibre Channel connectivity. The SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 is a new, next-level, high-performance version of the rich-media SGI InfiniteStorage RM660 introduced for broadcast and production in late 2004.
Even before its official debut at NAB 2006, the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 was purchased by two long-time SGI customers for two very different applications:
-- NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. added 600TB of
SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 storage capacity to its Columbia
supercomputer deployment, and acquired the new 4Gb infrastructure to
optimize data management with SGI(R) InfiniteStorage Shared
Filesystem CXFS(TM). Rated No. 4 on the Top 500 list of the world's
most powerful computers, NASA's 10,240-processor Columbia system, an
SGI(R) Altix(R) shared-memory computer with Intel(R) Itanium(R) 2
processors, required additional storage capacity to accommodate the
massive data management, access and retrieval demands of its broad
user base.
-- To accommodate the need for greater bandwidth performance prompted
by the growing demand for 4K digital intermediates by the motion
picture industry, Pacific Title & Art Studio purchased two SGI
InfiniteStorage 6700 systems with 50TB storage. A leading film
optical house since 1919, Pacific Title generates 8 to 16TB of data
per day in 2K and 4K digital cinema mastering. The SGI
InfiniteStorage 6700 systems, with real-time streams of 3 GBps, were
selected to meet the needs of real-time 4K -- which generates data
rates in excess of 850MBps -- as well as for the 4Gbit Fibre Channel
architecture, which the facility plans to implement throughout its
two locations in Hollywood, Calif.
Various industries will reap the benefits of the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 system in many applications:
Broadcast
Designed to integrate easily into existing storage, the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 can be configured as an ingest/playout server, a playout SAN, or a central repository serving nonlinear editing systems. The 4Gbit Fibre Channel connectivity and multi-gigabyte bandwidth enables broadcasters to manage, serve and store the massive amounts of data for digital and HD broadcast applications and collaborative production environments at never- before-seen speeds.
Production
SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 specifically addresses the problems of faster turnaround in a 4K data-centric media environment -- where Hollywood's all-or- nothing deadlines are paramount -- by providing real-time file delivery in 4K. For example, in the telecine department, each frame is handled as an individual file, totaling 24 files for each second of film. The process requires opening and closing many files consistently and the files have to be on time, because even a millisecond late in opening a file disrupts the continuity. The SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 guarantees real-time delivery through its specialized, low-latency architecture.
High-Performance Computing in the Sciences
To find answers to new types of challenging problems, investigators in scientific areas such as physics, material sciences, engineering, bioinformatics and nanotechnology all need to load data sets into the large memory of their supercomputers as rapidly as possible. One example is the Dresden University of Technology (TUD), which purchased $18 million of SGI technology late last year. As part of the German university's purchase, SGI is installing a Storage Area Network (SAN) containing almost 70TB of online disk capacity that -- in support of the capability computing system part of the installation -- is capable of feeding a petabyte-sized archive tape robot with high data rate. Another 50TB large SAN will be provided and connected to the throughput system part of the HPC environment. Their original five RM660 systems will be replaced with three SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 systems shortly, which will enable scientists to put an entire database into memory without worrying about the access speeds to disk drives, which are up to a thousand times slower than to memory.
The University is spearheading a new area of HPC by loading datasets off disk drives, across the wire, into the memory of their SGI Altix supercomputer with a required data rate of 8 GBps, enabling scientists to work on data, in real time, in memory. Using the high bandwidth and throughput of the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 system, they can harness the SGI Altix computer's 4TB of memory and fill it up with a 4TB dataset very fast. How fast can this be accomplished with the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 systems? They'll supply the 4TB in less than 9 minutes.
Meteorology
Weather climatology, forecasting and ocean modeling is produced 24/7 by government agencies and private forecasting services, where data from ocean sensors, satellites and airplanes is ingested continuously. Most meteorologists use a technique called ensembling, in which different model formulations analyze possible atmospheric variations simultaneously. The high throughput of SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 means models are delivered into system memory much, much faster, eliminating bottlenecks. Faster storage also expands numerical weather prediction domains to much larger areas, and at higher resolutions -- all leading to more precise analysis and forecasting.
Government Intelligence
Defense and intelligence sensors, satellites and other assets deliver continuous streaming data feeds and generate mountains of data. To move from information overload and allow analysts to make timely, credible insights in order to take effective action, the SGI InfiniteStorage 6700, which also features dual parity for enhanced data integrity, ingests and stores this continuous high data rate of information at lightning speed to make it immediately available for high-level analysis. The SGI system also drastically cuts the time it takes to move files on a network during the various stages of the defense and intelligence decision cycle.
"The SGI InfiniteStorage 6700 is optimized for real-time applications requiring lower latency and multiple high-throughput video data streams involving hundreds of megabytes per second or even in excess of gigabytes per second," said John Howarth, director, Storage Group, SGI. "This is very unique, high-end, high-performance storage that very rapidly moves very large blocks of data for the cutting-edge laboratories and businesses that will define the future of computational excellence."
Availability
The SGI InfiniteStorage 6700, based on DataDirect Networks technology, can be ordered today for delivery this quarter and will be RoHS compliant. Entry level configurations start at 10.5 TB. For more information, contact SGI or visit http://www.sgi.com/products/storage .
SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance computing. SGI helps customers solve their computing challenges, whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, or helping enterprises manage large data. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at http://www.sgi.com.
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Contact: Lisa Pistacchio, +1-650-933-5683, or pistacchio@sgi.com, or SGI PR HOTLINE, +1-650-933-7777, or SGI PR FACSIMILE, +1-650-933-0283, all of SGI.
Source: prnewswire
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