Nanook and Seawolf

Nanook and Seawolf are Sun Fire 6800s used as storage servers.

Specifications

These systems are configured identically, except as indicated:

8 CPUs
Clock frequency: 900MHz
16 GB Memory
Local disk capacity
- 20 TB on Seawolf
- 10 TB on Nanoook
STK T9940B Fibre Channel tape drives:
- 4 on Seawolf
- 3 on Nanook
STK T10000A Fibre Channel tape drives:
- 6 on Seawolf
- 2 on Nanook

Description

These Sun systems provide permanent mass storage for user data at ARSC. The systems are connected to tape drives in the STK SL8500 automated tape library. Together with the library, the Suns have enormous capacity, theoretically more than three PetaBytes (3000 TB). On each Sun, users have a small, quota-limited home directory and an 'archive' directory. The archive directory is unlimited in the number and size of offline files a user can store. There are other file systems available for special purpose applications and groups.

The Sun hardware is configured in a mostly fault-tolerant configuration. The disks are either mirrored or RAID with multiple paths, to ensure that failure of any single disk or control/data path is unlikely to interrupt access to data. The large number of accessible tape drives ensures that a failure of any one drive will not prevent access to the data. Finally, most of the network paths are dual-path to the network routers and switches. Both network paths are active, thus increasing the aggregate bandwidth to/from the systems.

Nanook and Seawolf User Links

For more information on data availability, backup, restoration, and retention, review the ARSC storage policies. To view a summary of available storage file systems, including appropriate uses for each, visit storage management.

Arctic Region Supercomputing Center
PO Box 756020, Fairbanks, AK 99775 | voice: 907-450-8600 | email: