IBRIX Takes Aim at New Vertical Markets

By Michael Feldman

December 7, 2007

IBRIX, one of the smaller players in the HPC storage market, is preparing to enter its next growth phase. With a revamped executive team, lead by CEO Bernard Gilbert, the company is looking to expand its market footprint.

Since the introduction of its Fusion parallel file system software in 2005, IBRIX has managed to snag some high profile companies with their software offerings. Big name customers like Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Feature Animation, NCSA, AOL, Facebook, Monsanto, Caterpillar and others are an indication that there is a growing interest in using parallel file systems in both HPC and ultra-scale big data applications.

IBRIX Fusion is an integrated suite of software that enables scalable file serving. The IBRIX high-throughput parallel file system (FusionFS) is designed for mainstream HPC platforms, i.e. Linux clusters with commodity storage. Unlike Panasas and Isilon, Fusion is a software-only solution, suitable across a range of storage hardware platforms. This enables data residing on multiple vendors’ storage to be aggregated under a single file system namespace, with capacities in the petabytes realm. Also unlike other parallel storage solutions, IBRIX parallelizes both the file metadata and the file data itself. There is no centralized metadata server, which helps make scaling storage capacity more transparent for the user.

The solution is suitable for both compute-intensive applications, like animation rendering, data mining, and genomics sequencing, as well as bulk storage applications, such as online storage services, email, video sharing, and digital music services. This points to the company’s dual focus in high performance computing and large-scale, Web-based applications.

Gilbert, a former Sun Microsystems exec, who came on board in June, was specifically brought in to drive the company through the next stage of growth. That means expanding their market penetration beyond their traditional HPC customers in research/education, media/entertainment, and oil and gas. The new areas Gilbert is going after are in the financial services sector and Web 2.0-based media storage and distribution. IBRIX intends to follow the same strategy it found useful in other markets: sign up a big name company (like Pixar in the media/entertainment sector) to attract other companies in the same vertical.

The process has already begun.

Earlier this year, AOL became a client when the Web giant’s multi-petabyte storage environment became too unwieldy to manage with traditional NAS solutions. AOL needed to support a rapidly growing storage capacity with 24/7 uptime, all hosted on inexpensive storage hardware. Fusion provided that through its high availability software features, allowing AOL to upgrade file servers on the fly or even to take storage off-line for maintenance. AOL’s database, spread out over four applications, is currently eight petabytes and growing.

Over the next few years, the company is hoping to take advantage of this demand for ultra-scale bulk storage management by other online digital media companies. Gilbert believes that businesses like AOL, which need to manage rapidly growing unstructured content on commodity storage, are perfectly suited to Fusion file systems. Internet companies offering software-as-a-service products are also candidates for high performance parallel file system solutions. In all cases, these online providers require the same high level of I/O throughput common to many applications in traditional high-end technical computing.

Apparently, the company is also on the verge of bringing a large financial firm into the fold. Gilbert says they expect to be announcing a big win sometime within the next few weeks. He sees financial analytics as a big opportunity for them, since the storage topology is identical to many HPC research applications, that is, a large number of compute nodes accessing a relatively small amount of data. In these cases, I/O throughput can easily become the bottleneck, resulting in compute resources wasting precious time waiting for data. On Wall Street, bottlenecks like this are intolerable when you’re trying to execute time critical trading.

The big challenge for IBRIX in expanding its market reach is getting its foot in the door. To date, the company has been able to use some key partnerships to raise its visibility. Both Dell and EMC are strategic partners that have helped bring IBRIX into some major deals. HP and IBM are reseller partners with a big footprint in the HPC server market. Even so, IBRIX is looking to expand its partnerships to get into more accounts.

Gilbert says they’re looking to achieve a 1.5X year-over-year growth. A glance at the IBRIX Web site shows they’re currently looking to hire nine additional people, reflecting the typical profile of a small company in growth mode. With the immediate focus of expanding into its targeted verticals and adding some top tier customers to its portfolio, IBRIX should have its hands full in 2008.

“I’m really encouraged by the technology we have,” says Gilbert. “We are growing into some very interesting verticals. I think the potential there is [very large]. But I want to make sure we go in there with our eyes wide open.”

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire