Reference Guide

Solution overview
9 Reference Architecture of Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC Life Sciences | Document 309
Figure 1 PowerEdge C4140 Config-M
2.3 Storage components
The storage infrastructure consists of the following components and the details of the configurations can be
found from the references:
• Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC NFS Storage (NSS7.0-HA) (8)
• Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC Lustre Storage (9)
• Dell EMC Isilon Scale-out NAS Product Family: Dell EMC Isilon F800 All-flash (10)
2.3.1 Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC Lustre Storage
The Dell EMC Ready Solution for HPC Lustre Storage, referred to as Dell HPC Lustre Storage is designed for
academic and industry users who need to deploy a fully-supported, easy-to-use, high-throughput, scale-out
and cost-effective parallel file system storage solution. The solution uses Lustre v.2.10.4. It is a scale-out
storage solution appliance capable of providing high performance and HA. Using an intelligent, extensive and
intuitive management interface, the integrated manager for Lustre (IML), the solution greatly simplifies
deploying, managing and monitoring all the hardware and storage system components. It is easy to scale in
capacity, performance or both, thereby providing a convenient path to grow in the future. Figure 2 shows the
relationship of the metadata server (MDS), metadata target (MDT), management target (MGT), object storage
server (OSS) and object storage target (OST) components of a typical Lustre configuration. Further, 2 x
PowerEdge R740s are used as MDS. This MDS pair is configured in an active/active, as in case of distributed
namespace (DNE) or active/passive for HA. The MDS pair is attached to a PowerVault ME4024, a 2U storage
array, through 12 Gbps SAS links which host the MDTs. The OSS pair is attached to 4 x PowerVault ME4048,
5U storage arrays, through 12 Gbps SAS links. The 4x PowerVault ME4048 storage arrays host the OSTs for
the Lustre file system. This 4x PowerVault ME4048 configuration is a large configuration, although a medium
base configuration is used to benchmark NGS pipelines (11).