Cornell University's New Storage Solution for Sequencing Data

By Matthew Dublin

Cornell University has opted a Red Hat software storage solution to deal with their genomics data. Cornell's Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) is tasked with handling roughly 15 to 20 terabytes of sequencing data per month from the university's Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies.

Their previous storage system only allowed access to standard file systems and had a capacity that capped at 16 terabytes per node. So in order to eliminate their storage headaches, the folks at CAD decided to deploy Red Hat's software on a combination of native operating systems and Windows on 158 terabytes using Dell blades with Infiniband interconnects.

According to James VanEe, IT Director of Cornell’s Institute for Biotechnology and Life Science Technologies, the primary determining factor in going with Red Hat — formerly Gluster — was cost. “The idea of a scale-out storage solution was something we’d always been interested in, but never could implement due to cost,” says VanEe. “We considered other solutions — such as Isilon — but the large, up-front capital investment motivated us to turn to CAC for suggestions on other possible storage solutions that did not require a big upfront investment."