In this chapter, we present IBM Spectrum Scale use cases that use ESS and are already documented elsewhere. This chapter introduces such use cases and has the following sections:

IBM Spectrum Scale is flexible and scalable software-defined file storage for analytics workloads. Enterprises around the globe deploy IBM Spectrum Scale to form large data lakes and content repositories to perform High Performance Computing (HPC) and analytics workloads. It is known to scale performance and capacity without bottlenecks. Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) is a leader in Hadoop and Spark distributions. HDP addresses the needs of data-at-rest, powers real-time customer applications, and delivers robust analytics that accelerate decision making and innovation.

IBM Spectrum Scale solves the challenge of explosive growth of unstructured data against a flat IT budget. IBM Spectrum Scale provides unified file and object software-defined storage for high-performance, large-scale workloads, and it can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud.

IBM Spectrum Scale is POSIX compatible, so it supports various applications and workloads. By using IBM Spectrum Scale HDFS Transparency Hadoop connector, you can analyze file and object data in place, with no data transfer or data movement. Traditional systems and analytics systems use and share data that is hosted on IBM Spectrum Scale file systems.

Hadoop and Spark services can use a storage system to save IT costs because no special-purpose storage is required to perform the analytics. IBM Spectrum Scale features a rich set of enterprise-level data management and protection features. These features include snapshots, information lifecycle management (ILM), compression, and encryption, which provide more value than traditional analytic systems do.

For more information, see the following document:

IT administrators, physicians, data scientists, researchers, bioinformaticians, and other professionals who are involved in the genomics workflow need the right foundation to achieve their research objectives efficiently. At the same time, they want to improve patient care and outcomes. Thus, it is important to understand the different stages of the genomics workload and the key characteristics of it.

Advanced genomics medicine customers are outgrowing NAS storage. The move from a traditional NAS system or a modern scale-out NAS system to a parallel file system like IBM Spectrum Scale requires a new set of skills. Thus, the IBM Spectrum Scale Blueprint for Genomics Medicine Workloads must provide basic background information. It must also offer optional professional services to help customers successfully transition to the new infrastructure.

For more information, see the following document:

The IBM Spectrum Protect Blueprints explains how to use ESS as a disk pool for IBM Spectrum Protect. This enables the backup server to have a different storage from the one it uses for backing up systems. It also enables high performing storage for both backup and restores at competitive prices.

For more information, see the following web page:

More and more files are stored in file systems. Over time, many files are never or rarely accessed.

Deleting files sounds easy but requires additional decision processes and approvals in a business environment. Thus, most files are retained in the file storage system and there is constant data growth.

Archiving with IBM Spectrum Scale and IBM Spectrum Archive EE is flexible and easy. The product archives and recalls files with no administrator operations, while it provides an optimized total cost of ownership.

For more information, see the following web page:

You can combine IBM Cloud™ Object Storage with IBM Spectrum Scale through the Transparent Cloud Tier (TCT). When you use TCT, Cloud Object Store can be used as a colder tier, it can be an on-site Cloud Object Store, and a remote Cloud Object Store.

For more information, see the following web page:

You can use ESS to provide IBM Spectrum Scale storage in IBM Cloud Private, as explained on the following web page:

For a more generic approach to IBM Spectrum Scale and Containers, you can look at the presentation on the following web page:

For information on persistent storage in containers, see the following web page:

You can also check the Ubiquity Storage Service for Containers Ecosystems on the following web page: