Low Cost, Open Grid Services Architecture Storage System

75579-Nuclear Physics research will soon be producing Petabyte-scale data sets. A data grid, using the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA), is being implemented to share this data with scientific collaborators world-wide. However, in order to efficiently and economically share such large data sets in this manner, low-cost high capacity OGSA storage systems will be required. To address this need, storage systems, which utilize low-cost ATA (advanced technology attachment) disk drives with capacities ranging from sub-Terabyte scale to multi-Petabyte scale, and with data transfer rates exceeding 150 Megabytes per second, are currently under development. This project will enhance this storage technology to be OGSA-compliant while still retaining low cost and high performance, thereby providing valuable storage for all large scale scientific experiments. In Phase I, a high capacity ATA disk based storage system will be integrated with a Grid, utilizing the OGSA. An extensive performance analysis will be performed to identify an optimal architecture for a low cost, high performance commercial implementation of the system. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Development of a high capacity data storage system, designed to economically operate as an OGSA data storage device, should provide increased capability and performance to Grids world-wide. The technology should benefit large science experiments as well as globally based commercial companies.