Updated 2022-12-07

IDEaS Storage on the Cluster

IDEaS storage is a cost effective high performance border storage system for hosting data repositories that can be accessed from locations both internal and external to PACE.

Overview

  • GT faculty associated with or granted access by the IDEaS group can request a new filesystem on it. The total usable space is currenlty 940.29TB.
  • The filesystem naming convention is is-<pi-username>-0, the quota of which is shared by all members in the PI group with read/write access.
  • The storage can be directly accessed from both Phoenix/Hive PACE servers and from Windows, Mac or Linux systems on the GT network.
  • The storage can also be accessed via Globus
  • Snapshots for backup is taken at 30 days intervals.

Infrastructure

  • DDN IntelliFlash N6000 Series: N6200 High-Performance NVMe Solution:1U, 12x7TB drives
  • Drive Enclosure Models: SS9012: 4U, 90 x 12.8TB drives
  • Performance: 509.79 MB/s write, 529.71 MB/s re-write, 247.42 MB/s read, and 4564.84 MB/s re-read.

How to request access

PACE can only grant accounts to academic faculty with the approval of the IDEaS leadership lead by Srinivas Aluru. Academic faculty wishing to use IDEaS storage should contact [Aaron J. Drysdale] (adrysdale3@gatech.edu). The request should include the GT username of the PI and GT usernames of the requested member accounts. Likewise, subsequent additions of students, postdocs, and research faculty to your group should go to Aaron.

  • If you are a member of a research group and your PI has IDEAS access, please ask your PI to request access for you by contacting pace-support@oit.gatech.edu.
  • If you need to access the storage system from a physical server with static IP, please include the IP of the server, so we can open filewall and add the IP to intelliFlash NFS & SMB ACL list.

How to access

IDEaS storage is mounted on Phoenix/Hive nodes and is accessible through the Globus data transfer service. You need to be connected to VPN.

  • On the PACE servers, unlike lustre storage, you will not have a symbolic link in your home directory for IDEaS storage. You need to cd /storage/ideas/is-<pi-username>-0 for access instead.
  • For accessing the storage outside of PACE, follow the below instructions.
Globus

IDEaS storage is mounted on the Globus Phoenix endpoint for transferring files. To access through Globus, select the collection PACE Phoenix and set path to /storage/ideas/is-<pi-username>-0

Screenshot

In addition to Globus, the IDEaS storage filesystem can be locally mounted on Windows and Linux machines as described below.

Warning

Mounting IDEaS storage locally on a Mac machine is not supported

Windows

IDEaS storage can be accessed locally on windows machines or VMs on the GT network (like Vlab or GT Mycloud services) through the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. From the Windows file explorer, type \\128.61.254.120 in the address bar and select your folder is-<pi-username>-0.

Screenshot

Linux

IDEaS storage can be mounted locally with the Network File System (NFS) protocol on a Linux machine. NFS should only be used for mounting from devices that remain in the same network, like a server or a fixed workstation. Due to security requirements, additional review is required to confirm that device is on a subnet which is allowed through the firewalls.

For mounting the storage on Linux, open terminal and run the command sudo mount -t nfs -o vers=4 128.61.254.120:/export/IDEAS/is-<pi-username>-0 <path-to-your-mount-point>.

Note

Please contact pace-support@oit.gatech.edu to confirm the proper firewall rules are in place for your device(s) to access the storage.