1. General Atomics offers Nirvana, an object storage solution, and EasyHSM, a hierarchical storage management solution integrated with IBM Spectrum Scale. 2. Nirvana provides a global namespace spanning multiple storage pools, implements replication and migration, and handles metadata extraction and search. 3. EasyHSM provides transparent tiering between IBM Spectrum Scale storage and external storage using file stubs and policy-driven data movement.

1. 1May 2017 Igor Sfiligoi
Nirvana and EasyHSM
Storage Solutions
from
General Atomics

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• The Storage Software Group at General Atomics has
a long tradition in data handling
– Going back to 1995 when we ran
the San Diego Supercomputing Center
• Nirvana is a complete object store solution
– Storage abstraction, federation and tiering
– Metadata repository, extraction and handling
– Audit trail
• EasyHSM is a POSIX solution
– Integrated with IBM Spectrum Scale (GPFS)
– Optimized for storage abstraction and tiering
What do we offer?

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Nirvana can be called a virtual object store
Main characteristics:
• Global namespace,
spanning multiple physical storage pools
• Layers on top of existing storage resources
– Supports POSIX, Windows, NFS, S3 and
Google Storage APIs
• Implements replication and migration logic
– Both explicit and policy driven
Nirvana Storage Handling

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• Nirvana does not provide its own
filesystem solution
– There are many available,
why re-invent the wheel?
• Nirvana can operate
on anything that supports
– File paths
– Basic file permissions
– Data ingest and retrieval
• Straight mapping between Nirvana’s global
namespace and underlying storage system
– No obfuscation, easy to interact with external tools
Operating on top of existing storage
At least in theory, we
provide implementation
for a fixed set

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• Global namespace allows for decoupling
of logical location and physical storage
• Users care about the logical location
– E.g. files in my home directory
– They don’t care where the data is stored, as long as
they can get it (fast enough) when needed
• System administrators can manage physical space
– Based on SLAs and budget constraints
– Files in a single logical folder may be partitioned
across multiple storage pools (e.g. based on age),
or have different number of replicas (based on type)
Global namespace

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• Metadata is “data about data”
– i.e. File attributes
• By adding attributes to your files
– Easier to find your files
– Easier for others to find your files
– Dynamically sort files in virtual collections
Nirvana is also Metadata-centric
Saves time
and money

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• Nirvana stores metadata in a standard RDBMS
– Supports PostrgeSQL and Oracle
• Administrators define the attribute schemas
• Metadata can be generated
– By hand, using either cmdline or Web client tools
– Automatically extracted from the filesystem using
provided scrubbing/reconciliation tools
Metadata generation

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• Nirvana (of course) provides per-file attribute lookup
• Nirvana also provides
attribute-based file lookup
– Both cmdline and Web client tools
• Nirvana also provides virtual collections
– Indistinguishable from a traditional read-only directory
from the user point of view
Metadata-based search
Try to do this
with AWS S3!

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• User grouping and federation
• Fine grained file permissions
– Supports discretionary,
role based and
mandatory access controls
• Keeps a detailed audit trail
Nirvana Security features

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• Dramatic scrubbing/reconciliation speedup
– System attributes: observed 1M files/minute (16k/s)
– JPG scrubbing: observed 60k files/minute (1k/s)
• New Web Administration interface
– Web client available since a long time
– Old-style Java-based GUI still available, too
• Nirvana now offers a S3 REST server, too
– In addition to the proprietary APIs and tools
Recent changes

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• EasyHSM is a Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM)
solution for IBM Spectrum Scale (GPFS)
• GPFS provides the namespace management
– And hot data storage management
• EasyHSM provides the tiering logic
– Between GPFS storage and external storage
EasyHSM is a Transparent Tiering Solution
IBM Spectrum Scale
EasyHSM
Smallish but fast layer
Large but slower
bulk storage

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• A mature, very reliable storage system
– With solid backing from IBM
• Highly scalable
– Originally designed for HPC applications
• Multiple access point protocols
– Traditional NFS, SMB/CIFS, S3
– High performance Native Client Drivers
The IBM Spectrum Scale Advantage
GPFS
Clients
SMB
NFSS3

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• Not all data needs to be in the fast, GPFS layer
– But all files must be visible to the users
• EasyHSM provides an effective tiering solution
– Uses HSM file stubs to link to external storage
– Policy driven explicit movement of data
between GPFS and external storage
– Transparent high performance
retrieval of data into the GPFS layer
on user access
Tiering with EasyHSM

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• Tools for migrating data from GFPS to external storage
• Tools for freeing disk space on GPFS (stubbing)
– Invisible to final users
• A daemon for transparent recall on access
– And handling file removal
• Tools for explicit recall from external storage to GPFS
• Support scripts for easy
integration with GPFS Policy Manager (ILM)
EasyHSM components

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• EasyHSM is the only solution that allows tiering using
multiple external protocols (both POSIX and Object)
• EasyHSM does a straight mapping between GPFS
path and external storage path/URI
– Minimal massaging, e.g. adding protocol and IP
– No obfuscation, easy to interact with external tools
• Scalable, low overhead implementation
– Linear scaling over multiple hardware nodes
– Not in the path for hot data
• Pure software solution
– Does not need dedicated hardware
• Fixed price licensing (not capacity based)
EasyHSM vs Competition

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• EasyHSM does support Nirvana as external storage
– But can (obviously) work without it, too
• When used together, separation of duties
– EasyHSM provides the tiering from GPFS
– Nirvana handles replication and migration
between multiple external storage systems
EasyHSM and Nirvana
IBM Spectrum Scale
EasyHSM Nirvana

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• EasyHSM home page:
http://www.ga.com/easyhsm
• Nirvana home page:
http://www.ga.com/nirvana
If you just want to know more, feel free to
– Contact me at
Igor.Sfiligoi@ga.com
– Contact the program manager at
Robert.Murphy@ga.com
For more information