Mass Storage System (MSS) Improvement

	The graph shows that the growth of the NCAR MSS continues to follow an exponential curve (red line). The MSS has successfully scaled up for decades. CISL continues to make system enhancements and deploy state-of-the-art storage solutions to maintain the NCAR MSS' leadership position in high-volume data management technology. View large image.
	The chart identifies the storage technologies tested and used in the MSS since 1964. The NCAR MSS Group has evaluated and deployed many cutting-edge storage technologies during the life of the MSS. These carefully chosen solutions have enabled and enhanced MSS scalability, reliability, and availability at affordable levels throughout the life of the system. View large image.

The NCAR Mass Storage System (MSS) has been a high performance, reliable, and scalable system over the past 20 years. It has demonstrated high availability and accessibility and has been extremely cost effective. The MSS in many ways has been what has distinguished computing at SCD from computing elsewhere, and the system continues to be highly regarded by users and by peers at other centers. MSS maintenance and development supports the NCAR strategic priority of "Enhancing capability and capacity of NCAR supercomputing."

Today, the NCAR MSS remains one of the most capacious archives. At the end of FY 2006, it stores more than 3 petabytes (PB) of total data (2 PB of unique data), transfers more than 3 terabytes (TB) of data per day in response to user requests, transfers another 3+ TB of data per day of internal data migration and data movement to new media, and is growing at a net rate of more than 50 TB per month. The typical NCAR MSS user manipulates this data within the confines of the SCD Computer Room where the highest possible data access performance, reliability, and availability are provided. However, the computing environment is shifting from the traditional "glass house" paradigm, where the end user must come to a central site via interfaces such as telnet for data access, to a network/WEB/Grid-driven data-hungry virtual computing environment in which data flows to the end user. The NCAR MSS must adapt to the changing paradigm while maintaining the high-performance characteristics of the glass house environment.

The future development and deployment of the NCAR Mass Storage System is constrained by both the need to continue providing traditional file storage and access to Mass Storage Services in the context of a full 7 by 24 production environment, as well as adapting the MSS to new roles as an integrated component of larger UCAR-wide data management efforts. The MSS's traditional role of reliably preserving UCAR/NCAR's data and serving them to a wide client base will continue. The MSS must scale up to meet an ever-growing demand for secure reliable data storage and high-performance access. This requires the constant evaluation and periodic deployment of the latest, highest-performance, and most cost-effective hardware and software technologies available. Software and hardware enhancements, detailed in CISL's FY 2005 annual report, were completed in FY 2006. Plans for FY 2007 include the continued conversion from 60-GB tape cartridge capacity to 200 GB, preparing for a tape library increment either in FY 2007 or early FY 2008 depending on budgetary constraints, and increasing the data-transfer infrastructure to support the ICESS computing increment.

More information appears in the NCAR MSS Strategic Plan.

The NCAR MSS is managed by CISL under the UCAR/NSF Cooperative Agreement and is supported by NSF Core funds including CSL funding.