HPC
BeeGFS Parallel File System - What's All The BuZzzzz About
March 21, 2022
6 min read
An Overview of BeeGFS
For decades, parallel file systems have been crucial in building storage environments that are capable of keeping up with today's most demanding technology solutions. From storing massive, mission-critical datasets, to providing high-speed scratch space, to storing the results of expensive long-running computation, parallel file systems are vital to the operations of many industries.
If you’re familiar with parallel cluster file systems, then you're most likely familiar with BeeGFS.
BeeGFS is an open source parallel file system that is suitable for large data storage and environments that require high scalability. It was designed as a storage solution for high performance computing by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics. Originally known as the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft File System (FhGFS), BeeGFS is the leading parallel cluster file system, developed with a strong focus on performance as well as being very easy to install and manage.
As a parallel file system indicates, BeeGFS files are striped over multiple server nodes to maximize read/write performance and scalability of the file system. These server nodes work together to deliver a single file system that can be simultaneously mounted and accessed by other server nodes, commonly known as clients. In a nut-shell, clients can see and consume this distributed file system similarly to a local file system such as NTFS, XFS, or ext4.
Need a turnkey storage appliance built on validated hardware for demanding HPC workloads?
Learn more about Exxact's BeeGFS solutions
BeeGFS vs. Traditional File Systems
BeeGFS was created to overcome the limitations and restrictions of traditional filesystems; avoid architectural bottlenecks; and address modern HPC, cognitive market I/O profile demand.
Why use BeeGFS?
Traditionally parallel file systems have been seen as complex to deploy and manage. However, BeeGFS has been designed for flexibility and simplicity from its inception.
BeeGFS transparently spreads user data across multiple servers. By increasing the number of servers and disks in the system, you can simply scale performance and capacity of the file system to the level that you need seamlessly, from small clusters all the way up to enterprise-class systems with thousands of nodes.
This gives BeeGFS high performance value that is also cost-effective, not to mention BeeGFS can be easily tested in small proof-of-concept environments to prove out the performance and value.
BeeGFS: A New Standard for Performance, Scalability and Flexibility
BeeGFS is easy to use and requires no kernel patches. The client is a patchless kernel module, while the server components are user space daemons. It comes with graphical cluster installation tools and allows you to add more clients and servers to the running system whenever you want it.
BeeGFS offers maximum performance and scalability on various levels. It supports distributed file contents with flexible striping across the storage servers on a file or by directory base as well as distributed metadata and its client and server components are available for Linux on x86, x86_64, ARM64, and other architectures.
BeeGFS is optimized to provide:
Maximum Scalability | Maximum Flexibility |
|---|---|
|
|
BeeGFS Primary Enterprise Features
- Storage and metadata mirroring with high availability
- System-wide disk space allocation, quota tracking and enforcement
- Access Control List
- Storage pools
- BeeOND: BeeGFS On Demand (Burst Buffering)
BeeGFS has recently made some improvements with key benefits such as:
- Added support for new operating system and Mellanox OFED releases.
- Added option KRELEASE to client makefile to facilitate client builds in a chroot.
- Added option to disable SSL certificate checks in beegfs-mon to enable self-signed certificates for InfluxDB.
- Customer contribution: RDMA completion queue interrupts will now be distributed across all CPU cores instead of always using the first core.
- Multiple updates to documentation.
At Exxact Corporation we pride ourselves on building high quality turnkey storage solutions. Our BeeGFS Solution is a robust solution built on validated hardware for the most demanding HPC workloads. If you’d like to learn more contact our sales engineer team. They're waiting to build out the perfect solution for you.
Have any questions about BeeGFS or other storage solutions? Contact Exxact Today
HPC
BeeGFS Parallel File System - What's All The BuZzzzz About
March 21, 20226 min read
An Overview of BeeGFS
For decades, parallel file systems have been crucial in building storage environments that are capable of keeping up with today's most demanding technology solutions. From storing massive, mission-critical datasets, to providing high-speed scratch space, to storing the results of expensive long-running computation, parallel file systems are vital to the operations of many industries.
If you’re familiar with parallel cluster file systems, then you're most likely familiar with BeeGFS.
BeeGFS is an open source parallel file system that is suitable for large data storage and environments that require high scalability. It was designed as a storage solution for high performance computing by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics. Originally known as the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft File System (FhGFS), BeeGFS is the leading parallel cluster file system, developed with a strong focus on performance as well as being very easy to install and manage.
As a parallel file system indicates, BeeGFS files are striped over multiple server nodes to maximize read/write performance and scalability of the file system. These server nodes work together to deliver a single file system that can be simultaneously mounted and accessed by other server nodes, commonly known as clients. In a nut-shell, clients can see and consume this distributed file system similarly to a local file system such as NTFS, XFS, or ext4.
Need a turnkey storage appliance built on validated hardware for demanding HPC workloads?
Learn more about Exxact's BeeGFS solutions
BeeGFS vs. Traditional File Systems
BeeGFS was created to overcome the limitations and restrictions of traditional filesystems; avoid architectural bottlenecks; and address modern HPC, cognitive market I/O profile demand.
Why use BeeGFS?
Traditionally parallel file systems have been seen as complex to deploy and manage. However, BeeGFS has been designed for flexibility and simplicity from its inception.
BeeGFS transparently spreads user data across multiple servers. By increasing the number of servers and disks in the system, you can simply scale performance and capacity of the file system to the level that you need seamlessly, from small clusters all the way up to enterprise-class systems with thousands of nodes.
This gives BeeGFS high performance value that is also cost-effective, not to mention BeeGFS can be easily tested in small proof-of-concept environments to prove out the performance and value.
BeeGFS: A New Standard for Performance, Scalability and Flexibility
BeeGFS is easy to use and requires no kernel patches. The client is a patchless kernel module, while the server components are user space daemons. It comes with graphical cluster installation tools and allows you to add more clients and servers to the running system whenever you want it.
BeeGFS offers maximum performance and scalability on various levels. It supports distributed file contents with flexible striping across the storage servers on a file or by directory base as well as distributed metadata and its client and server components are available for Linux on x86, x86_64, ARM64, and other architectures.
BeeGFS is optimized to provide:
Maximum Scalability | Maximum Flexibility |
|---|---|
|
|
BeeGFS Primary Enterprise Features
- Storage and metadata mirroring with high availability
- System-wide disk space allocation, quota tracking and enforcement
- Access Control List
- Storage pools
- BeeOND: BeeGFS On Demand (Burst Buffering)
BeeGFS has recently made some improvements with key benefits such as:
- Added support for new operating system and Mellanox OFED releases.
- Added option KRELEASE to client makefile to facilitate client builds in a chroot.
- Added option to disable SSL certificate checks in beegfs-mon to enable self-signed certificates for InfluxDB.
- Customer contribution: RDMA completion queue interrupts will now be distributed across all CPU cores instead of always using the first core.
- Multiple updates to documentation.
At Exxact Corporation we pride ourselves on building high quality turnkey storage solutions. Our BeeGFS Solution is a robust solution built on validated hardware for the most demanding HPC workloads. If you’d like to learn more contact our sales engineer team. They're waiting to build out the perfect solution for you.
Have any questions about BeeGFS or other storage solutions? Contact Exxact Today
