Implementation and Managed Services for IBM Spectrum Scale from The ATS Group

by | Apr 5, 2018

IBM Spectrum Scale, formerly GPFS, is a leading choice to enable high performance, large-scale workloads, both on-premise or in the cloud. This software-defined storage solution is increasingly implemented alongside IBM Elastic Storage to help ensure capital and operating cost savings while supporting expansive volumes of files, objects and assets. However, when it comes to effectively, […]

IBM Spectrum Scale, formerly GPFS, is a leading choice to enable high performance, large-scale workloads, both on-premise or in the cloud. This software-defined storage solution is increasingly implemented alongside IBM Elastic Storage to help ensure capital and operating cost savings while supporting expansive volumes of files, objects and assets.
However, when it comes to effectively, efficiently and accurately implementing and managing IBM Spectrum Scale, there are numerous considerations to take into account. This is where The ATS Group comes in, as your implementation and managed services partner for your Spectrum Scale investment.

Industry-leading Services and Support

Our internal experts strive to support, maintain and manage your Spectrum Scale platform in a way that meets and exceeds your business needs. Overall, The ATS Group can offer support and resources for:

  • Consulting
  • Architecture
  • Design
  • Installation
  • Implementation
  • Customization
  • Tech Support

We ensure that your IBM Spectrum Scale, AIX and VIOS Power Servers, Brocade and Cisco SAN, IBM Storage and other systems are in the hands of subject matter experts who know the ins and outs of enabling top-notch performance and supporting a robust return on investment. Our SMEs provide a helping hand to augment your existing staff – in this way, your internal IT can focus on other, mission-critical initiatives and rest easy knowing your most crucial infrastructure systems are being managed and maintained by the experts.
The ATS Group provides a full spectrum of support, including configuration, infrastructure changes, product patches and upgrades, skills transfer, proof of concept and consulting. Our experts also ensure that your team is supported with advanced skills for infrastructure health checks, performance tuning, capacity planning, disaster recovery testing, and more – we’re here for you on an as-needed basis to ensure that you have all the necessary tools in connection with your IBM Spectrum Scale to support success.

How We Support IBM Spectrum Scale

Our team of experts also provide features and support specifically centered around Spectrum Scale, including:

  • Protocol Node Setup and Configuration: We install and configure Protocol Nodes, and set up CIFS, SMB, NFS, Object Access and Cleversafe.
  • Information Lifecycle Management: We create custom policy management just for Spectrum Scale to ensure optimal placement and migration of data across multi-tiered storage including flash, SAS and NL-SAS drives.
  • Spectrum Archive and Spectrum Project Integration: We leverage mmbackup, HSM and LTFS-EE to integrate Spectrum Scale backup data with Archive.
  • Existing Cluster Integration: We also integrate your existing clusters including DDN Storage, Dell HPC clusters and IBM ESS.
  • Migration Support: We direct and ensure smooth migration of your data stemming from other storage and NAS environments to Spectrum Scale.
  • Active File Management: We set up Home and Cache clusters, as well as multiple-geographic location caching to support optimal disaster recovery, data replication and data caching.
  • File Placement Optimizer: We install and configure File Placement Optimizer clusters to support big data analytics and cloud applications. We also leverage Spectrum Scale to accelerate Hadoop applications.
  • Performance Tuning: We tune your Spectrum Scale clusters to support high performance computing (HPC) and high throughput computing (HTC) in connection with business analytics, big data and genomics applications.

Advanced Access to Next Gen Solutions

A partnership with The ATS Group also means your organization can take advantage of the IBM Innovation Center (IC) at our Malvern, PA facility. Here, we provide you with advanced access to the latest and greatest IBM enterprise technologies, allowing you to be a step ahead of the competition with your Spectrum Scale implementation.
Best of all, the IC also features state-of-the-art advancements from other leading-name tech providers including Brocade, Cisco and VMware, helping to support cutting-edge innovations across your entire infrastructure. The IC provides a place for hands-on demonstrations, hypotheses testing and insights for proof-of-concepts. The IC also supports customer training from streamlined tech implementation efforts – from planning and evaluation through execution.

Customer Solution Briefs

The ATS Group works hard to design and provide you with custom solutions that suit your exact business needs. Let’s take a closer look at some of our recent success stories:

  • Fortune 500 insurance and financial service provider: Our experts architected and implemented a 20-node Spectrum Scale cluster across two locations in order to support the client’s existing email archive application. In addition, our team completed a storage refresh and OS upgrades for compatibility and migration.
  • Federal agency: Our team completed an extensive proof-of-concept comparing the Open Source clustered LUSTRE file system with IBM Spectrum Scale, enabling our client to evaluate performance, administration and high availability features. As a result, we implemented a multi-node Spectrum Scale cluster and migrated 1.5 PB of existing data to the new storage environment.
  • Renowned research institute focused on genomic research translation: This specialized firm required architecture and implementation of IBM Spectrum Archive to support the nightly archiving of approximately 150 TB of Spectrum Scale data to IBM Tape Libraries. Our team created a solution including Spectrum Scale clusters, 5 NSD Servers supporting RHEL-7, Spectrum Archive nodes and Linux client nodes. The ATS Group also provided consultancy services on an hourly basis to ensure the timely resolution of any performance issues and software updates between the research institute and IBM.

Connect with The ATS Group today to learn more about how we can support your IBM Spectrum Scale architecture, deployment and support.

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