Object storage for UCL

With 25 Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and staff as well as a world-class reputation for the quality of its teaching and research, UCL sought to remove the burden of storing and preserving research data from individual researchers and in doing so, lower the barriers of sharing and exploiting vital findings in order to improve research outcomes and overcome problems of global significance.

As UCL’s storage demands grow, the university expects to build a storage foundation that will scale up to 100PB. Looking for a storage solution that was massively scalable yet simple to manage as part of the first phase of the infrastructure build out, UCL will use DDN TM object storage technology to store up to 600TB of research data.

DDN object storage capabilities also will be able to empower UCL researchers to collaborate without having to worry about data reliability, compliance obligations or long-term retention of critical research assets.

With DDN WOS® distributed object storage architecture, GRIDScalerTM parallel file storage system and tight integration with the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data Management Solution (iRODS), UCL forecasts it will save up to hundreds of thousands of UK pounds by slashing hardware, power and staffing costs, as well as maintenance fees, associated with attaining and maintaining personal data stores across 100 departments, institutes and research centers.

DDN Delivers High-Performance Storage without Adding Complexity

Faced with the need to accommodate all types of research data of varying velocity and growth rates, UCL wanted to consolidate storage and minimize the cost, administration and compliance risks of individual researchers maintaining standalone removable hard drives and USB drives containing critical research data.

Additionally, given UCL’s highly-congested, expensive downtown London location, power and space efficiency was critical which made a high-density storage architecture essential to the university.

Rather than taking an approach that limited application access and scale, UCL selected the combination of DDN’s distributed WOS and GRIDScaler technology to provide the desired scalability, performance, reliability, portability and management simplicity.

With DDN WOS storage technology, UCL also expects to better meet increasingly stringent compliance requirements for the management and preservation of research data as required by the UK Research Councils and other UK funding bodies.

DDN’s strong track record of supporting massive research initiatives and diverse academic environments was a significant consideration in the final decision as UCL wanted a partner that understood the differences between corporate and academic worlds, including the critical importance of delivering a solution researchers would embrace and use.