SCD News: June 7, 2005
Mass Storage Services Group (MSSG) provides tools and services to help users manage their archived data
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Erich Thanhardt (left) and John Merrill of the Mass Storage Services Group point out milestones in the exponential growth of the MSS. |
Often called one of NCAR's "crown jewels," the Mass Storage System (MSS) is growing at an exponential rate. In the first 16 years of its existence, the MSS grew to hold 1 petabyte of data, 1015 bytes. About a year and a half after that, the MSS surpassed 2 petabytes of data. Fueled by the rapidly increasing power of computing systems, data growth is pressuring MSS resources, and users now need to plan carefully for the future.
This growth has produced a new era for MSS users: the era of conservation. It is very important for users to maintain awareness of the data they are storing on the MSS, and they now need to develop long-range strategies to manage their holdings. The Mass Storage Services Group (MSSG) is working to reduce this burden on users by providing tools and services to facilitate the effort.
To help users conserve space on the MSS and store only that which is essential, the MSSG now offers the following:
A website is available to help users understand and manage their holdings. This website is generated weekly to summarize information on users' MSS holdings organized by user logon name, by scientist number, or by project number. Information is automatically generated for the entire MSS. The website is introduced in the MSS user document under How to access information on your MSS holdings.
In addition, users can now subscribe to a service that provides detailed information on a per-file basis. Generated weekly, this service currently offers two types of listings. The first gives a full listing of all files belonging to a particular logon name, scientist number, or project number. The second lists files that are more than five years old that have never been read. This is intended to raise awareness about older, unused data that continue to consume MSS resources. For details, see Subscribing to detailed MSS file listings.
These guidelines were drafted to help people use the MSS most effectively, avoid abuse of the system, and conserve MSS resources. They provide users with an overview of options for pursuing these goals. They appear in the MSS user document under Guidelines for efficient MSS usage.
The Mass Storage Services Group recently embarked on a project to manage the MSS growth problem. An early result of this effort was the decision to form strategic partnerships with interested users to cooperatively develop effective MSS data management strategies. The MSSG emphasizes that this is a personalized, one-on-one, long-term strategic service. It is not intended to replace more tactically oriented services such as the Customer Support Services or SCD Consulting Services. If you want to develop an effective long-term strategy for managing your data holdings, contact Erich Thanhardt at erich@ucar.edu or 303-497-1281.
These offerings are only the beginning of MSSG's efforts to help users respond to the challenges of this new era of unprecedented growth for the MSS. SCD is committed to working closely with users to manage the problems of runaway data growth while continuing to satisfy their needs.
—Brian Bevirt
Photo: Brian Bevirt, NCAR/CISL
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NCAR is managed
by UCAR and sponsored by the National Science Foundation |
