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Dell PowerScale combines a scalable hardware platform with a parallel software architecture to optimize data storage for EDA workloads. PowerScale scale-out, network-attached storage (NAS) is a fully distributed, symmetrical system that comprises clustered storage nodes. The OneFS operating system unifies the memory, I/O, CPUs, and disks of the nodes to present a single, linearly scaling file system.
Adding nodes adds capacity, performance, and resiliency to the cluster, and each node can process requests from EDA compute grid clients, while taking advantage of the entire cluster's performance. The PowerScale architecture contains no single location for the data, no concept of a controller head and no RAID groups. The result is a highly efficient, scalable, and elastic architecture.
One problem with traditional, scale-up storage architectures, is that they create performance bottlenecks that deteriorate at scale. The controller is the primary bottleneck and attaching too much capacity to the controller can saturate it. Storage system bottlenecks can negatively affect job completion time for concurrent jobs, which can lengthen design cycles and time to market for a new chip. The distributed PowerScale architecture eliminates the single-head CPU saturation point of a controller. A large number of concurrent jobs, often resulting in substantial amounts of metadata operations, can run without saturating the storage system, shortening the time to market.
Traditional storage systems also use disk space inefficiently. The uneven utilization of capacity across islands of storage requires manual intervention to rebalance volumes across aggregates and to migrate data to an even level – work that increase operating expenses. The inefficient utilization also negatively affects capital expenditures because extra capacity must be set aside as storage overhead.
In contrast, OneFS evenly distributes data among a cluster's nodes to maximize storage efficiency. A PowerScale cluster continuously balances data across all the constituent nodes, conserving space and eliminating much of the capacity overhead that traditional storage systems require. The efficient utilization of disk space and ease of use allow PowerScale storage to reduce both capital and operational expenses.
Traditional storage systems also have multiple points of management. Each filer must be individually managed, and this management overhead increases the total cost of ownership and operation expense (OpEx). The lack of centralized management also puts organizations at a strategic disadvantage because it undermines their ability to expand storage to adapt to growing datasets and fluctuating business needs, which can increase time to market. Multiple volumes of data are presented to users, which must work within the limits of each volume. The OneFS architecture, on the other hand, presents data within a single volume, regardless of the number of nodes within the cluster. With its single namespace, PowerScale delivers a high return on investment by centralizing data management.
New advancements of 7nm, 5nm, and 3nm process nodes have introduced complex design challenges for chipmakers, specifically the growing needs for storage performance to meet shorter design cycles and time to market challenges. PowerScale scale-out cluster lets organizations adapt to complex storage requirements, add capacity and performance in cost effective ways without disruption, and reduce elapsed times for concurrent jobs.
This paper describes these benefits of PowerScale storage and provides best practices for configuring and managing PowerScale systems in a semiconductor electronic design automation (EDA) environment.