ARCHIVED: Completed project: SDA IUPUI library replacement

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Primary UITS contact: Kurt Seiffert (seiffert@indiana.edu)

Completed: September 20, 2011

Description: The project will replace the aging STK 9310 tape library on the Scholarly Data Archive (SDA). The new library will support five thousand tape slots, expandable to 12 thousand. New 4 TB tape drives will be installed in the new tape library and the IUB tape library.

Outcome: When completed, SDA will have a total of 14 PB of tape on hand, and a maximum capacity of more than 40 PB. Each tape drive will be capable of streaming data at 250 MB/sec, giving an aggregate transfer capability of 6 GB/sec.

Milestones and status: Library assembled and preparing for functional testing.

Research tape and library vendors and technologies Completed October 2010
RFP for new tape library, tape drives, tapes, and disk cache Completed December 2010
Select vendor for RFP Completed June 2011
Install/test new tape library and components Completed July 2011
Reconfigure HPSS to use the new library for new file ingest Completed September 2011
Migrate data from older lower density tapes Completed September 2011

Comment process: Email Research Storage.

Benefits: The current IUPUI library limits the SDA to 6.6 PB of data storage. A new tape library will have a capacity of 7.5 PB by itself, more than doubling the SDA capacity as a whole. Additionally, the new library will support growth to at least 60 PB over the next seven years.

Client impact: IU researchers will continue to have ample archival storage for research data. For many IU researchers receiving federal grants, the SDA is a critical component of their mandated data management plans.

Project team:

Kurt Seiffert
Jeff Russ
Chris Garrison

Governance: Craig Stewart, AVP, Research Technologies

Risks: Failure to replace the tape library in the 2011 calendar year will force changes in IU data management policy due to storage limitations. Also:

Second copies of files would no longer be geographically distributed, forcing several organizational units to change their disaster recovery plans.
Storage quotas would fail to keep pace with growing data demands.
It might be necessary to establish data lifetime policies in the archive.
University organizational units would have to seek other funding to support their data management plans.