Project Background
NIRD currently holds approximately 1 billion files totaling 75 PB. Around 60% of this data is cold, making them prime candidates for migration to tape. Rising data volume driven by AI demand further strengthens the case for tape as a cost-effective long-term storage medium.
The growing demand for backup services highlights the necessity of tape-based, cost-effective backup solutions that offer capacity and cyber-resilience. This further solidifies NIRD’s position as a critical national infrastructure.
Purpose of the Project
The project will establish tape as a fully integrated storage tier within NIRD, reducing dependency on spinning disk for long-term storage. Key outcomes include physical air-gap capabilities against ransomware and cyber threats, improved automated data lifecycle management, extended lifetime of existing second-generation NIRD components and a smoother transition towards the third-generation NIRD.
Tape libraries will be set up at one or more locations. A dedicated assessment will evaluate potential placement options, considering factors like redundancy, operational needs, security, and cost.
The NIRD Tape Library will primarily serve two crucial functions: hierarchical storage management (HSM) and tape-based backup.
Procurement process
TBA
Timelines
TBA
Data Centric Model
The Data Centric Model is Sigma2's strategic response to the convergence of HPC, cloud, and AI workloads and leads with the Sigma2’s strategic vision of user in focus.
Rather than attaching dedicated storage to each compute facility, NIRD (Norwegian Infrastructure for Research Data) becomes the shared, persistent data plane for all compute systems.