Press Release
WestGrid selects
SGI and YottaYotta for Remote Visualization and Geographic Data Grid
Services
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA,
and EDMONTON, AB, Oct. 25, 2005: Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI),
the world’s leader in high-performance computing, visualization and
storage, and YottaYotta®, the high performance NetStorage®
company, announced today that WestGrid has successfully deployed the
SGI InfiniteStorage Shared File System CXFS™ in conjunction with the
YottaYotta NetStorager® System across a distance of over 1,000
kilometers.
WestGrid (Western Canada Research Grid) is a $50-million project
to operate grid-enabled high performance computing and collaboration
infrastructure at institutions in Alberta and British Columbia.
Its resources are provided at no cost to researchers across
Canada. Westgrid selected SGI and YottaYotta to deliver remote
visualization and geographic data grid services to Simon Fraser
University (SFU) and the University of Alberta (UofA).
“WestGrid has created an environment for world class computational
research with resources located at universities across Western Canada,”
said Dr. Rob Simmonds, chief technology officer of WestGrid. "The
addition of the YottaYotta system greatly simplifies the task of
exploring massive data sets generated on computers located more than
1,000 kilometers from our primary SGI visualization server."
Together, SGI and YottaYotta provide the capability to deploy a single
shared file system across thousands of kilometers, permitting customers
to intelligently share a consistent data image at local SAN rates –
enabling compute, storage, and visualization resources to be leveraged
across multiple distributed sites.
“This project demonstrates that data grids do not have to be
limited to single site or campus deployments,” said Martin Pinard,
President SGI Canada. “The SGI and YottaYotta solution will allow users
spread across the WestGrid environment to experience transparent and
secure access to shared data, even if it’s physically located thousands
of kilometers away.”
The SGI/YottaYotta
Data Grid Solution
Together SGI’s clustered file system, CXFS and YottaYotta’s Global
Block Services offer a new standard in data grid service. The combined
SGI/YottaYotta solution provides access to a globally consistent name
space at local performance rates. A common way to share data between
sites is to duplicate it by using FTP to copy files from storage at one
site, to storage at another site. This model suffers from excess data
duplication, excess WAN traffic, and increased challenges with version
management. With the SGI/YottaYotta solution, the user experience is
fundamentally different from the traditional FTP model. Rather than
having to log on to a remote server, initiate an FTP session, and
download files, the user is provided with transparent local access to
remote files as if they were sitting on his or her desktop.
“The deployment of the SGI/YottaYotta data grid solution validates that
distributed data processing across geography is now a viable option as
opposed to duplicating compute and storage infrastructure,” said Wayne
Karpoff, chief technology officer and co-founder of YottaYotta.
SGI: The Source of
Innovation and Discovery™
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in
high-performance computing, visualization, and storage. SGI's vision is
to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and
creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images
to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global
climate, or enabling the transition from analog to digital
broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of
challenges for scientific, engineering, and creative users. With
offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View,
Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.
About YottaYotta
YottaYotta provides a suite of Global Block Services that deliver
Global Data Sharing and Fully-Active Continuity of Operations (COOP).
The NetStorager System localizes access to globally coherent data,
enabling organizations to leverage their entire storage infrastructure
across multiple distributed sites while providing a significant
reduction in WAN traffic. The result is increased utilization of IT
resources, SAN performance over the WAN, and continuity of operations
despite site failures and network disruptions. Founded in January 2000,
YottaYotta is privately funded with offices in Edmonton, AB and
Alexandria, VA.
About WestGrid
WestGrid is a $50 million project to operate grid-enabled high
performance computing and collaboration infrastructure at institutions
across Alberta and British Columbia. A second stage of the project,
dubbed WestGrid II, envisions an infrastructure that will include all
research universities and major research institutes using computation
resources in western Canada. WestGrid can be found on the web at www.westgrid.ca.
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Silicon
Graphics, SGI, XFS, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered
trademarks and CXFS and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are
trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other
countries worldwide. YottaYotta, NetStorage, and NetStorager are
registered trademarks of YottaYotta, Inc. All other trademarks
mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
For further information contact:
Rebecca Bell
SGI Canada – PR and Marketing Manager
T (514) 626-4472
rbell@sgi.com
Robert Handlovsky
Director, Marketing
YottaYotta, Inc.
T (780) 989-6883
rhandlovsky@yottayotta.com
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