HPC storage solutions

WSU HPC Grid offers multiple storage tiers, including Panasas ActiveStor Prime (Tier 1, with 2 weeks of backups), Panasas ActiveStor 14 & 18 (Tier 2), Panasas snapshots, a dedicated backup system, and OSiRIS distributed storage. Faculty, staff, and students engaged in WSU-affiliated research or coursework may request storage allocations, Grid accounts, and group directories. Specialized storage, such as the Engineering Hadoop/Spark cluster, supports big data projects.

Tier one 

Panasas ActiveStor Prime Storage 

• Who can use it? WSU and WSU-affiliated students, faculty and staff who have an active AccessID and are actively engaged in WSU-affiliated research or coursework taking place on the WSU HPC Grid. 
• What is it comprised of? ~1.6 PB of raw network-attached storage. Users may request up to 4 TB. Groups may request up to 10 TB. More may be made available upon request. 
• How is it accessed? If you have research or coursework that will utilize the WSU HPC Grid then you may apply for a Grid Account. If you will be collaborating with other Grid users then you can request a Group Directory. 
• Is it backed up? Yes, it stores two weeks of backups, and the system, along with snapshots, is backed up on a separate storage system maintained by the HPC services team.

College of Engineering Hadoop/Spark Cluster 

• Who can use it? WSU College of Engineering students, faculty and staff who have an active AccessID and are engaged in WSU College of Engineering research or coursework involving big data software and hardware. 
• What is it comprised of? ~240 TB of SATA Storage spread across 5 nodes running Hadoop, spark, and other big data software. 
• How is it accessed? Contact the WSU HPC team for more information. 

WSU OSiRIS 

• Who can use it? WSU and WSU-affiliated students, faculty and staff who have an active AccessID and are collaborating with researchers at the University of Michigan and/or Michigan State University. 
• What is it comprised of? ~8 PB of Distributed multi-istitutional storage (currently in beta). Visit https://www.osris.org/about for more information. 
• How is it accessed? Contact the WSU HPC team for more information. 

Tier two 

Panasas ActiveStor 14 and 18

• Who can use it? WSU and WSU-affiliated students, faculty and staff have an active AccessID and are actively engaged in WSU-affiliated research or coursework taking place on the WSU HPC Grid. 
• What is it comprised of? ~1.5 PB of raw network-attached storage. Users may request up to 10 TB. Groups may request up to 50 TB. More may be made available upon request. 
• How is it accessed? If you have research or coursework that will utilize the WSU HPC Grid then you may apply for a Grid Account. If you will be collaborating with other Grid users then you can request a Group Directory. 

Tier three and/or backup 

Panasas Snapshots Internal to the Panasas ActiveStor Prime 

• Who can use it? WSU HPC Grid users automatically have their home directories backed up by snapshots. 
• What is it comprised of? Snapshots are integrated into the ActiveStor Prime Storage Solution. The snapshot directory provides two weeks' worth of snapshots. 
• How is it accessed? The snapshot directory is accessed via the ~/.snapshot directory in your home directory. Please visit this tutorial for more information. 

Dedicated Backup 

• Who can use it? WSU HPC Grid users automatically have their home directories and group directories backed up. 
• What is it comprised of? ~1.5 PB of raw network-attached storage. 
• How is it accessed? A dedicated backup is in place to prevent loss of data due to a failure of the Tier 1 Panasas system. Retrieval of files may be accomplished by accessing the ~/.snapshot directory in your home directory. Please visit this tutorial for more information.