IBM Spectrum Scale is a high-performance distributed file system and compute cluster that can be deployed on the IBM Cloud in minutes. This blog post explores how the Spectrum Scale catalog tile on IBM Cloud enables the quick creation of a high-performance infrastructure and file system. It also highlights the performance benefits of using Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud.

What is IBM Spectrum Scale?

IBM Spectrum Scale is a high-performance clustered file system that allows multiple nodes to access a shared file system concurrently. It can be used in various hardware and software configurations. When deployed on the IBM Cloud, Spectrum Scale provides a collection of storage nodes built from bare metal servers for storage and virtual instances for compute.

How does it work on IBM Cloud?

To deploy Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud, users can utilize the IBM Spectrum Scale catalog tile in the IBM Cloud Schematics interface. This interface provides a straightforward process for configuring cloud-based storage and compute clusters. Once the configuration details are provided, the input is stored as a Schematics workspace. This workspace contains the infrastructure specification, which is used to create the cloud-based infrastructure using Terraform and Ansible code.

Key Features and Performance

The IBM Cloud VPC infrastructure used by Spectrum Scale can employ bare metal instances with NVMe devices for storage or virtual instances with instance storage. The performance and capacity of the storage and compute nodes can be customized based on user requirements.

When it comes to performance, Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud offers impressive results. The table below showcases a few key performance metrics achieved using a specific system configuration:

Operation	Performance	Threads/Compute	Request Size
Write Sequential	35 GiB/sec	12	4 MiB
Read Sequential	112 GiB/sec	8	4 MiB
Write Random	861,797 IOPS	128	4 KiB
Read Random	5,447,134 IOPS	80	4 KiB

The performance tests were conducted on a system with 10 storage nodes, 80 NVMe drives, and 100 Gbps network interfaces. The results demonstrate high read and write bandwidth as well as impressive input/output operations per second (IOPS).

Cluster Creation and Deployment Time

The time required to create a Spectrum Scale cluster on IBM Cloud varies based on the cluster configuration. Based on real experiments, the following timings provide a guideline:

Cluster Type	Schematics Time	Controller Terraform Time	Controller Ansible Time	Total Time
3-storage, 3-compute	05:20	16:38	19:35	41:35
6-storage 64-compute	05:02	17:11	32:12	54:25
10-storage 64-compute	05:12	17:17	34:12	56:41

The total time for cluster creation includes Schematics Time (running Terraform scripts), Controller Terraform Time, and Controller Ansible Time. The performance of Terraform provisions can be parallelized, while Ansible-based configurations run serially.

Conclusion

The IBM Cloud Spectrum Scale catalog tile offers a simple and efficient way to create a high-performance compute and storage cluster. With minimal effort, users can deploy a custom cluster with a large distributed file system and optimized compute capacity in under an hour. The out-of-the-box performance of Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud is impressive, making it an ideal solution for high-performance computing workloads.

FAQ

What is IBM Spectrum Scale?

IBM Spectrum Scale is a high-performance clustered file system that provides concurrent access to a shared file system from multiple nodes.

How does IBM Spectrum Scale work on IBM Cloud?

Spectrum Scale can be deployed on IBM Cloud using the Spectrum Scale catalog tile in the IBM Cloud Schematics interface. This allows users to easily configure a cloud-based storage and compute cluster.

What are the performance benefits of Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud?

Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud offers high read and write bandwidth, as well as impressive input/output operations per second (IOPS) for storage. The performance can be customized based on user requirements.

How long does it take to create a Spectrum Scale cluster on IBM Cloud?

The time required to create a Spectrum Scale cluster on IBM Cloud varies based on the cluster configuration. Based on real experiments, the creation time can range from approximately 41 minutes to 56 minutes.

What level of resiliency does Spectrum Scale provide on IBM Cloud?

Out of the box, Spectrum Scale on IBM Cloud offers resiliency that allows for the loss of a storage node or a storage block. Users can customize the resiliency and security settings based on their needs.

Is there a cost associated with creating a Spectrum Scale cluster on IBM Cloud?

While there may be costs associated with the underlying infrastructure, the Schematics workspace used to store the cluster configuration does not incur any cost or energy while in storage.

Source: IBM Cloud Blog