A happy and healthy new year to all of our blog readers! As 2021 begins, we mark a major new expansion in scope of the NESE project (NESE Exascale) with the installation of the new NESE Tape tier consisting of a 133PB capable IBM TS4500 tape system. 

Post by Saul Youssef

Details about the system and our plans can be found in the annual report. Even with the challenging COVID situation, the IBM, Harvard and MGHPCC teams came together in December and more-or less completed the physical installation of the new system, with John Goodhue leading the infrastructure preparations and Scott Yockel leading the overall project. Starting in a few days, IBM will return to complete the installation, Nick Amento will set up the new NESE Core network described in previous blog entries and the NESE team will start the process of testing the system and integrating operations into Harvard FAS Research Computing.

More details will appear in later blog entries, but here are a few photos of the installation (courtesy of John Goodhue, Mike Methier and Kevin Helm), and a list of who has been involved in the launch phase of NESE Tape so far.

Harvard: Nick Amento, Milan Kupcevic, Mike Methier, Christian Ranney, Krista Valladares, Brian White, Scott Yockel.

MGHPCC: John Goodhue, Kevin Helm

Boston University: Michael Dugan, Wayne Gilmore, Saul Youssef

IBM: Mark Callahan, Rob Davis, John Dwyer, Don Fortier, Mark F. St. James, Kevin Johnson, Stephen Johnson, Richard Wacht, Neal Whitfield