Cardiff University is working with OCF to launch a state-of-the-art data storage and management service that will empower researchers to work with larger datasets. This will advance their work while making research data easier to find and reuse.
Cardiff University is pioneering research that acts today for the benefit of tomorrow, creating ideas, knowledge, and solutions that future generations will depend on.
Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff (ARCCA) provides leading-edge hardware and software for researchers who need additional computing power to solve complex problems - from black-hole physics to neuroscience to climate change.
Cardiff University is on a mission to transform its research culture, creating a values-led environment that is supportive, collaborative, open, and inclusive. Central to this transformation is the FAIR Campus initiative - a major refresh of the University’s research data infrastructure and services to better support both internal research activity and collaboration with external partners.
Data storage and management was a top priority for modernisation, as Dr Jon Lockley, Director of Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff University, explains: “Our existing research data storage platform was coming to the end of its supported lifespan and capacity was becoming an issue. We recently refreshed our high-performance computing and AI infrastructure, enabling researchers to process and generate more and more data. However, the gap in capability between our compute and storage was causing bottlenecks, and many researchers were relying on workarounds or standing up their own storage to get around this.”
This growth in shadow IT made it difficult for researchers to find and share information and posed a cybersecurity risk. To get the University’s research data assets under central control, ARCCA set out to build a modern storage platform underpinned by FAIR Data Principles—improving the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets.
Following an open tender, ARCCA engaged OCF to design and deliver a next-generation research data storage and management service based on IBM and Starfish technology.
The primary storage platform comprises an IBM Storage Scale System 3500 with 7PB of disk storage for high-performance warm data storage that enables researchers to access data quickly and easily. For long-term retention, ARCCA deployed a 1PB research data archive based on IBM Diamondback Tape Library.
ARCCA uses Starfish Storage unstructured data management software to tag, catalogue, and organise data across the virtualised storage environment. “The Starfish tool makes the whole thing taggable, indexable, and helps us to manage data across the different platforms,” says Dr Jon Lockley.
With acceptance testing about to begin, ARCCA is working closely with OCF to get the solution up and running. “We will use Starfish to migrate data from the old infrastructure to the new platform with support from OCF,” notes Dr. Jon Lockley. “We’re planning to launch the new FAIR Campus research data storage and management service at the start of the new academic year, and the solution will be fully managed by OCF for the first year of operations. This will take a lot of pressure off my team and free us to be more user focused; it’s reassuring to know that we’ll always have expert support at hand.”
Closely integrated with the ARCCA’s ‘Falcon’ supercomputer, the new data storage and management service will support the rapid growth of data-intensive research across Cardiff University. This approach supports the University’s ambitions in areas such as advanced simulation, AI-driven research, and large-scale collaborative projects that depend on fast, reliable access to research data. (1)
“Many researchers have struggled with quite stringent limits in the amount and types of storage that they have access to,” comments Dr. Jon Lockley. “The new FAIR Campus service is going to take the brakes off a lot of projects, particularly in fields with very large datasets such as medicine and life sciences. It’s not just the enhanced capacity and performance of the new platform that’s exciting, but also the data management services. Before, researchers might have struggled with tagging and indexing their data or keeping their data safe. The FAIR Campus service will take away a lot of that pain.”
Greater insight into the data assets that the University holds will help the ARCCA team from an operations point of view; making it easier to identify and move cold data to the archive for cost-effective long-term storage, for example.
Crucially, metadata tagging and cataloguing will make research data easily searchable and findable even when archived—allowing data to be rediscovered and reused in a meaningful way, in accordance with FAIR Data Principles.
“Researchers will be able to work with much larger datasets and collaborate more efficiently on projects,” concludes Dr. Jon Lockley. “Ultimately, this will help researchers to make exciting new discoveries and innovations that generate real-world impact with a lasting legacy.”
To learn more about OCF’s research data storage solutions and services, visit: https://ocf.co.uk/our-solutions/hpc-storage-solutions/
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