Data storage

At UQ, RCC takes responsibility for the technical aspects of research data storage.

HPC users can ask RCC for help with data archiving. RCC operates a near-line data archive for UQ research data, and also uses QRIScloud as a repository for UQ research data.

RCC can help estimate file storage sizes to assist with data management planning and costing.

For help with data storage, please contact rcc-support@uq.edu.au.

Please note UQ Library is responsible for:

Data management plans
Metadata design and management
Research data publication standards.

MeDiCI

RCC has developed MeDiCI (Metropolitan Data Caching Infrastructure), a high performance data storage fabric for UQ.

MeDiCI delivers ultra-fast multi-site data access on demand without user involvement, saving researchers valuable time to focus on their work.

MeDiCI provides seamless access to data, regardless of where they are created, manipulated and archived. It connects campus and QRIScloud data storage with the off-site data centre UQ and QRIScloud uses. It speeds up data access between UQ’s main St Lucia campus and the Polaris Data Centre in Springfield, about 30kms south of St Lucia.

MeDiCI, a distributed file system, holds copies of data on campus until they are not required for some time. It allows data currently being accessed by researchers to be cached on campus, and moves data not accessed for a while back to Polaris.

MeDiCI provides a number of ways for UQ users to access their data. It can be mounted directly on workstations and clusters on campus, using a number of standard protocols (including NFS, Samba, SMB and IBM’s GPFS native clients). It also offers a synch-and-share mode in which portable devices such as laptops can synchronise files into the same file space. Finally, data can be exposed through an object interface such as S3.

A major additional benefit of MeDiCI is that bandwidth bottlenecks between the campus and Polaris are less likely to cause a slowdown in researchers’ work.

Underpinning MeDiCI are SGI DMF, Oracle StorageTek, DDN GRIDScaler storage and IBM Spectrum Scale technologies.

UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) has trialled MeDiCI successfully. The data fabric will be rolled out for widespread UQ use in early 2017.

RCC and QBI are currently trialling MeDiCI with the University of California San Diego to test the data fabric’s capabilities for international data collaboration.

Research Computing CentreResearch Computing Centre

Data storage

MeDiCI

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