Nov. 9 — Atos, through its technology brand Bull, launches Bull Director for HPSS, first component of the future range of Bull Data Management software dedicated to High Performance Computing. Bull Director for HPSS optimizes current large scale storage solutions and frees up compute time for users.

This launch confirms Atos’ strategic commitment to develop innovative solutions for High Performance Computing (HPC) and High Performance Data Analytics (HPDA). The beta version of Bull Director for HPSS is revealed at the SC16 Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA), the largest HPC event in the world that takes place 14 – 17 November.

Bull Director for HPSS includes the following features:

• It is an ad-on to HPSS that brings performance and ease of management to the next level.
• It improves the global performance of HPSS for tape libraries, in an environment with many concurrent access requests, by grouping simultaneous requests from different users in real time.
• It sorts all file recalls dynamically and transparently, and queues them according to their position on tapes, thus massively decreasing tape mounts and tape movements. This improves drastically HPSS performance when massive file recalls are the norm. 

As data sets with hundreds of terabytes or many petabytes of data become increasingly common-place, Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) becomes a cornerstone of successful intensive data management systems. HSM is a data storage technique that automatically moves data between high-performance / high-cost storage devices and low-end / low-cost storage devices. To optimize costs, HSM systems store the bulk of data on slow, economical devices such as robotic tape libraries, and copy data to faster disk drives whenever they are needed for processing.

HPSS (High Performance Storage System) is an HSM system born from a collaboration between IBM Global Business Services and 5 American DOE laboratories, augmented by the French CEA/DAM.

“In a context of data explosion, storage is often a bottleneck and has a negative impact on application performance. Atos has a long experience of implementing HPSS in challenging environments where long-term data preservation and re-use of massive data sets are key. Our ultimate objective with Bull Director for HPSS and the other future components is to get rid of these bottlenecks and free up compute time for users,” explains Eric Eppe, Head of Products and Solutions for extreme computing at Atos.

Atos at SC16

Atos will exhibit the full breadth of its HPC offer at SC16. Visit booth #721 to discover the latest Bull sequana blades, the BXI high performance interconnect, and extreme factory, the HPC-as-a-service solution from Bull.

Bull Director for HPSS V1.0 will be available in December 2016.

Bull Director for HPSS V1.1 with HPSS Tape Order Recall (TOR) support will be available in Q1-2017.

About Atos

Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is a leader in digital services with pro forma annual revenue of circa EUR 12 billion and 100,000 employees in 72 countries. Serving a global client base, the Group provides Consulting & Systems Integration services, Managed Services & BPO, Cloud operations, Big Data & Cyber-security solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. With its deep technology expertise and industry knowledge, the Group works with clients across different business sectors: Defence, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications, and Transportation. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and is listed on the Euronext Paris market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline.

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Source: Atos