AWS Debuts Lustre as a Service, Accelerates Data Transfer

By Tiffany Trader

November 28, 2018

From the Amazon re:Invent main stage in Las Vegas today, Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy introduced Amazon FSx for Lustre, citing a growing body of applications that require the high-performance and low latencies of scale-out, parallel file systems. Based on the open source Lustre project, Amazon said its fully managed, highly parallel file system addresses the storage needs of high-performance computing, machine learning and media data processing workflows.

A set of AWS customers, said Jassy, have workloads with high throughput that need very low latency and massive parallel scale-out. They need an HPC file system, but without the management responsibilities that come along with it, he added.

“FSx for Lustre handles that very demanding set of performance characteristics, very high throughput, low-latency, hundreds of gigabytes per second, and millions of IOPs,” said the AWS chief. “It has seamless integration with S3 so you can have the data stored on S3, you can easily move it to FSx for Lustre, or you can point the FSx for Lustre at S3 and it will automatically move it over. And then when you’re done your processing, you can write that data back to S3 and shut down the Lustre file systems.”

Amazon customers can create and launch an Amazon FSx file system using the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or an AWS SDK. FSx for Lustre is compatible with most popular Linux-based AMIs, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Ubuntu, and SUSE Linux.

“You can create a file system in minutes, mount it on any number of clients, and start accessing it right away,” wrote AWS Chief Evangelist Jeff Barr, in a blog post. “This is a fully managed service so there’s nothing to maintain and nothing to administer.”

Automated operations are said to eliminate the need for administrative overhead and ongoing maintenance. “Amazon FSx performs routine Lustre updates, and detects and addresses hardware issues,” notes the cloud provider.

Each file system is backed by NVMe SSD storage, provisioned in increments of 3.6 TiB. Every 1 TiB of provisioned capacity provides 200 Mbps of aggregate throughput at 10,000 IOPS. The underlying storage is non-replicated, so is not intended as a long-term repository.

Amazon FSx for Lustre is available now in the US East (N. Virginia, Ohio), US West (Oregon) and Europe (Ireland) regions. File systems can be accessed from EC2 instances or via AWS Direct Connect (which connects a customer’s existing data center or colo to AWS), or VPN. Pricing is $0.14 per GB-month in the US regions and $0.154 per GB-month in Europe.

The new Amazon FSx family, launched this week, also includes a file system for Windows environments. “Built on Windows Server, Amazon FSx for Windows File Server provides a fully compatible Microsoft Windows File System, with full integration with customers’ Active Directory environment, including Active Directory domains, Windows access controls, and a native Windows Explorer experience,” said Amazon.

Amazon FSx complies with PCI DSS, ISO 9001, 27001, 27017, and 27018, and meets HIPAA eligibility standards.

Can you help me move that?

Yesterday, Amazon announced a new managed data transfer service that it claims can run 10 times as fast as open source data transfer schemes. The company says its AWS DataSync service uses network acceleration to simplify and automate data transfer between on-premises storage and Amazon S3 or Amazon Elastic File System. “AWS DataSync automatically handles many of the tasks related to data transfers that can slow down migrations or burden IT operations, including running one’s own instances, handling encryption and managing scripts,” said Amazon.

Univa is a DataSync launch partner. “As HPC workloads dynamically migrate to AWS, the data and results need to move as well,” said Rob Lalonde, vice president and general manager of cloud at Univa Corporation. “AWS DataSync coupled with our Navops Launch automation provides for data movement to be optimized so that just the required data is migrated to the cloud, and just the results are returned. This automation minimizes unnecessary data movement and reduces the time required between the creation of an instance, the movement of the data and the execution of the workload. In HPC, time is money and AWS DataSync saves both.”

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