IBM Opens GPFS File System to Linux

IBM on Tuesday is expected to announce a new software strategy that will allow supercomputing customers to leverage the power of the General Parallel File System (GPFS) across a mixed-vendor computer cluster for the first time.

First developed by Big Blue in 2001, GPFS is the commercial name for the Tiger Shark file system developed by the company's Almaden research laboratory. Orginally built for work on large-scale multimedia projects, it was later extended to parallel computing applications.

GPFS supports files of several tens of terabytes and has run at input/output rates of several gigabytes per second, according to IBM whitepapers on the subject.

The company's new software strategy is expected to benefit computing applications that require large files, such as engineering design, digital media, data mining, financial analysis, seismic data processing and scientific research. The file system spans multiple servers and these large files can be executed from each of them.

Scientists have used GPFS to create and manage files that were hundreds of terabytes in size, the computer maker said.

The first vendor to license GPFS from IBM will be Linux Networx, which would use the file system to offer its customers a way to manage their data pools in supercomputing environments.

"As the popularity of Linux-based computing clustering grows, so does the need for simplified and highly performant file management software that is able to function across any hardware platform," IBM Deep Computing vice president David Turek said.

IBM said that it has continued to invest in the file system, making it faster and more reliable. Big Blue also has launched initiatives to ensure support on non-IBM hardware and will offer the GPFS source code to eligible clients.

IBM believes that its customers will embrace GPFS for supercomputing applications. "Customers will welcome the ability to use this superior file system across their data centers, in ways more flexible than ever before," Turek said.