The Open Storage Network (OSN) aims to provide a sustainable, low-cost distributed storage cloud for the NSF research community, leveraging existing high-speed networks and promoting data sharing. The OSN features a standardized petascale storage infrastructure designed to facilitate interdisciplinary research, with scalable units referred to as 'OSN pods' that have specific technical requirements and specifications. Funded by NSF and the Schmidt Foundation, OSN focuses on simplifying deployment and management while enhancing accessibility to publicly-funded research datasets.

1. Globus: Enabling the Open Storage Network
GlobusWorld 2019
Brian Mohr
Made possible by
grants from the NSF
and the Schmidt
Foundation
NSF grants
1747552
1747493
1747507
1747490
1747483
1836357

2. The Open Storage Network: Mission Statement
The mission of OSN is
to provide a low-cost, high-quality,
sustainable, distributed storage cloud
for the NSF research community.

3. Research Cyberinfrastructure Today
Shared Resource
(XSEDE, PRAC)
Standardized
NSF-Funded
200+ universities with
40/100Gb Connectivity
Standardized
NSF-Funded
Largely Balkanized
No Standards
Requirement
No CI Funding
Computation Networking Storage

4. The Open Storage Network:
Cyberinfrastructure Goals
q Leverage existing NSF-funded high-speed network connectivity
q Establish a standard national petascale storage infrastructure
q Promote sharing of publicly-funded research datasets
q Facilitate interdisciplinary research (searchable metadata)
The third pillar…

5. OSN Federation Design Objectives
q Scalable: uniform hardware architecture across all OSN sites
q Efficient: centralized remote provisioning and monitoring
q Manageable: distributed lights-out data center
q Resilient: offline site ≠ loss of access to data (cross-site replication)
q Sustainable: minimal site-local staff overhead
Keep it simple…

6. OSN Pod Design Objective: “Scalable Unit”
q Capacity: 1 petabyte usable object storage
q Performance: 40Gb sequential throughput
q Ease of Procurement: an OSN-optimized vendor SKU
q Economical: $140,000 hardware budget
q Ease of Adoption: plug-n-play appliance model
Keep it simple…

7. OSN Scalable Unit – Technical Spec
8 Server Nodes
Five 4U Data Nodes | Three 1U Monitor/DTN Nodes
1.44 PB Raw Storage
8T HDDs | 7200 RPM 12Gb SAS | 36 Disks per Data Node
High-Speed Network: 100GbE ToR Switch
40 or 100Gb I2 Uplink | 50GbE Cluster Interconnect
Remote Management: 1GbE, KVM ToR Switches
OOB IPv4 | IPMI | Console | Switched Outlets

8. OSN Pod Physical Site Requirements
q Floor space for one 30-inch wide rack
q A/B power (current configuration: 6kW max)
q Dual fiber uplink to 40/100Gb network infrastructure
q Out-of-band network access for remote “pod” provisioning
q Allocate IP address blocks (high-speed: /27; OOB: 3x IPv4)
q That’s it!
Minimize barriers to adoption…

9. OSN Software Stack: Globus
q Authentication infrastructure
q GridFTP file transfer software
q S3 interface to Ceph object storage
Leverage existing Globus features…

10. OSN Software Stack: Globus Extensions
q Dataset Ownership
q Dataset Access Authorization
q Dataset Locality
q Dataset Replication
q Dataset Aging
q Dataset Tags (Searchable Catalog!)
Develop OSN-specific metadata/policy engine…

11. OSN Pod/Appliance Operations
Monitoring
Globus Engine
Provisioning

12. OSN Prototype Deployment Sites
Northeastern Storage Exchange
San Diego Supercomputing Center
University of Illinois
Renaissance Computing Institute
Northwestern University
Johns Hopkins University
Funded by NSF
Funded by Schmidt Foundation

13. OSN Scaled-out Deployment (Projected)
Assumption: one
or more OSN Pods per
40/100Gb NSF Campus
Cyberinfrastructure Site.

14. Questions?
openstoragenetwork.org