The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in Perth, a global leader in high-performance computing and scientific research is expanding its object storage solution. This strategic initiative will deliver one of the world’s largest research-focused object storage systems, empowering researchers with increased project data storage capabilities in a warm tier. This expansion will help meet Pawsey’s projected future needs.

XENON Systems, a Melbourne company, was chosen to deliver this 50% expansion of Pawsey’s object storage solution known as Acacia.

Addressing Growing Data Needs Today and Tomorrow

Scientific research is becoming more data intensive, and researchers need quick access as well as the ability to share and collaborate with global colleagues. To address these growing needs and future demands, Pawsey issued a tender for additional hardware to expand the existing high-speed object store, known as Acacia.

This upgrade adds approximately 50% of capacity to Acacia, taking the total raw storage to 110 PB.

Acacia object storage is interconnected to all existing Pawsey infrastructure, playing an important role in the research process. Recognising the growing data intensity of scientific research, Stacy Tyson, Head of Scientific Platforms at Pawsey, explains the importance of this expansion: “Managing data sets of increasing volume and interdependence is essential for scientific discovery. It is critical that we provide efficient data ingest, storage and rapid access for researchers. The expansion of Acacia directly addresses these challenges, allowing researchers to quickly access their datasets and efficiently transfer them to Setonix, ultimately accelerating their research cycles.”

Pawsey currently supports two significant radio telescopes, CSIRO’s ASKAP telescope and the Curtin University-led MWA telescope, located on Wajarri Country in Western Australia. Both telescopes are precursors to the international SKA project, one of humanity’s largest scientific endeavours. Acacia enables researchers worldwide to access and share the massive datasets generated by the ASKAP and MWA telescopes, facilitating local and international collaboration.

XENON Systems Secures Critical Contract

XENON Systems, a trusted provider of innovative high-performance computing and data management solutions, was awarded the contract for this expansion. With a proven track record in delivering robust and scalable storage solutions, XENON Systems collaborated closely with Pawsey when supplying and deploying the new storage capacity alongside the existing Acacia infrastructure.

Mr Peter McGonigal from XENON Systems stated “XENON is thrilled to contribute to the advancement of scientific research at Pawsey. Our team is committed to delivering reliable, high-performance storage solutions that align with Pawsey’s mission.”

Expansion Highlights

• Acacia: Pawsey’s existing high-speed object store, named after Australia’s national floral emblem, the Golden Wattle.
• Additional Capacity: XENON Systems will add 35PB of raw storage capacity to the object storage system. Prior to the expansion, Acacia was configured with 75PB raw capacity.
• Configured: Acacia is configured using Ceph S3 Object Storage (RADOS Gateway)
• Key Benefits:
  As well as supplying the additional 35PB of storage hardware XENON Systems also provided:
  • Onsite installation, deployment, and handover services
  • As-built documentation for deployed storage
  • Project Management support from award to final handover and acceptance
  • 5-year warranty support

XENON Systems is honoured to be able to assist the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre in its mission to advance scientific discovery through cutting-edge technology. This storage upgrade represents a significant step toward achieving that goal.

About the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre

The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre is a world-class high-performance computing facility accelerating scientific discoveries for Australia’s researchers. Named after Australian scientist Joseph Pawsey, known as one of the pioneers of Australian radio astronomy for his work in the field of interferometry, Pawsey serves over 4000 researchers achieving unprecedented results, in domains such as radio astronomy, energy and resources, engineering, bioinformatics and health sciences.

Pawsey is an unincorporated joint venture of CSIRO – Australia’s national science agency– Curtin University, Murdoch University, The University of Western Australia (Core Members) and Edith Cowan University (Founding Associate Member), it is supported by Western Australia and Australian governments.

The Pawsey Technology Refresh project is supported by the Australian Government through a $70 million grant. Pawsey is also supported by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) through the Department of Education.

For more information visit https://pawsey.org.au/systems/acacia/

About XENON

Since 1996, XENON Systems has been a leading provider of high performance computing systems and data storage solutions. With a focus on innovation, reliability, and performance, XENON Systems collaborates with research institutions, universities, and industry partners to accelerate scientific discovery and technological breakthroughs.

XENON Systems has expertise deploying solutions for a range of industries with a focus on: Research, Defence, Government, Higher Education, Media and Entertainment, and the Cloud.
For more information see the About Us page here.

Source: Karina Nunez, Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre