SOLUTION BRIEF

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Object Storage Solution Architecture Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
ActiveScale Configuration & Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
ActiveScale Software Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Supermicro Server Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

SUPERMICROSupermicro (Nasdaq: SMCI), the leading innovator in highperformance, high-efficiency server and storage technology is apremier provider of advanced server Building Block Solutions® forEnterprise Data Center, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, andEdge Computing Systems worldwide. Supermicro is committed toprotecting the environment through its “We Keep IT Green®” initiativeand provides customers with the most energy-efficient,environmentally-friendly solutions available on the market.

Executive Summary
Unstructured data is our customers' most valuable asset,
which must be preserved and protected forever. However,relentless data growth and retention trends drive demands
for more efficient, resilient, and secure Exabyte-scalestorage solutions. These demands continue to pressure IT
budgets and administrators. Simultaneously, organizationsare looking to unlock the value in their data, which makes
the task even more challenging. The correct storagearchitecture can allow organizations to leverage more of
their data without requiring budgets to scale at the samepace and make facilitating data forever realistic. Jointlywith our market leading, strategic partners, Supermicro ®
can help organizations easily transition from their legacy
storage to Object Storage platforms.

Supermicro, in collaboration with Quantum ActiveScale,enables our customers to deploy any targeted size of Data Lakewith great flexibility and scalability. Supermicro's fully
integrated, pre-tested, tuned, and racked solution, built
explicitly for ActiveScale patented Object Storage technologies,
can be operational in less than 30 minutes. Other primary use cases include Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and High
Performance Computing (HPC), where WekaIO* provides the high performance, low latency, and consistent response time ofSupermicro ActiveScale Reference Arch. ©2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved March 2021

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local NVMe storage ActiveScale stores massive amounts of data with geographically distributed systems in the back end.
Another use case is to provide on-premise Data Lake as cache space to a public cloud, delivering up to 10X performance while
cutting down the overall cost to the public cloud by over 90% (30% overall).
Supermicro can offer our customers the best-in-class and fully qualified storage solution featuring Quantum ActiveScale. Ourstarter offering consists of 3 4U90 systems with 5PB of raw capacity, which achieved over 17GB/Sec and 22K Obj/Sec overall
performance. ActiveScale provides seamless scalability to a multi Exabyte scale with high performance in a very cost effectiveway.
While ActiveScale is HDD S3 Object based, it can be fully integrated with WekaIO running on NVMe front-end for file access toprovide leadership performance.

Object Storage Solution Architecture Overview

Figure 1 – ActiveScale Object Storage Architecture

Cluster Reference Configuration Explain
Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage Architecture provides a system that can maximize storage availability and scale thesystem with minimal to no impact on the customer experience and performance by implementing a 2-layer architecture
combined with advanced next-gen shared nothing storage techniques
The Access Layer is responsible for providing a single global namespace across the entire environment. Client applications talkto the Object Storage system through the Access Layer using the S3 protocol. The Access Layer executes client facing functions
like authentication, authorization, encryption. It also houses a scalable object metadata database, protected by having
multiple copies across the access servers.
The Storage Layer is where all object data is stored in a very reliable fashion. While there is only one instance of the accesslayer in a single system, there might be multiple instances of the storage layer called Columns. A single object is stored in asingle column. Dynamic Data Placement allows the system to directly store the objects on available disk and storage nodes,
ensuring reliability and availability. No rebalance is required when scaling up the Column. Dynamic Data Repair will provide all
drives upon detection of a failed drive, and the missing data can be repaired to any available drive in the system.

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2Configuration
Together, Supermicro and Quantum ActiveScale provide the high-performance object storage solution with the 4U90 Top
Loading Dual Node Storage Server. 4U90 Storage Server provides 90 x3.5" drive bays supporting 18 TB drives, totaling 1.620
PB per 4U Rack space. Using standard 42U x 1200mm rack and reserving 6U for Top of rack switches, we can easily fit 9 X 4U90chassis, totaling 14.6 PB per a Data Lake Rack.

TypeQtyMemoryBoot Drive

Description
X11 Dual Node 90-bay Storage Server, use SSG-6049SP-7802A-QC001 toorder
2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors
Xeon Silver 4216 Processor, 16C/32T 2.1G 22M 9.6GT 100W 3647 L132GB DDR4-2933 2Rx4 LP ECC Registered DIMM
Samsung PM983 3.84TB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 SSD

Storage DriveNIC
SAS HBASAS HBAManagement SW

WD or HGST 3.5"18TB SAS 12Gb/s 7200RPM HDD
Mellanox ConnectX-4, Standard Low-Profile Dual-port 25G SFP28
Supermicro SAS HBA 3616 for 90 Bay system
Supermicro SAS HBA 9405-16e 16-port Tri Mode
Supermicro System Management Software Suite Node License

904222SystemCPU14164Table 1 - System Config Specifics

TypeSystem
Storage DriveDescription
4U 90-bay Top Load JBOD w/ dual expander, using SSG-947HE1C-7803A-QC001 toorder
WD or HGST 3.5"18TB SAS 12Gb/s 7200RPM HDD

Qty
190

ActiveScale Performance, Proven and Validated by the Joint Lab
ActiveScale Performance Setup and Measurements• EC policy: 13/3 (=10+3 Reed-Solomon)• 90 HDDs per 4U Chassis (45 HDDs per Node)• Backend Network: 12 x 25Gbps• Theoretical max S3 PUT performance: 27 GB/s
• Theoretical max S3 GET performance: 37.5 GB/s
• Different object sizes: 64 kiB, 512 kiB, 1 MiB, 4 MiB, 8 MiB, 16 MiB• Different number of parallel TCP connections: 384 connections, 10000 connections

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325 Gbit Switch(ActiveScalebackend)

45 HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit

Loadgen45 HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit

Loadgen45 HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit
45 HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit

25 GbitSwitch(public)

Loadgen
Loadgen
Loadgen45 HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit

Loadgen

45HDDs, 4 x 25
Gbit

Figure 2 - Solution Network Topology

Performance Results – S3 GET

Supermicro ActiveScale Reference Arch. ©2021 Copyright Super Micro Computer, Inc. All rights reserved March 20214Performance Results – S3 PUTThe performance testing on three (3) Supermicro Dual-Node 4U90 storage servers, SSG-6049SP-7802A-QC001 with 18TB
Drives, showed impressive results with both PUT and GET operations pushing the system to theoretical drive performancelimits. The system achieved 17.4 GB/s READs and 13.0 GB/s WRITES. Random read requests were above 20K
Objects/Sec. Much higher performance can be achieved by using more nodes as performance scales linearly.

For Smaller configurations, one can start with 3 1Ux12 (or SSG-6119P-7804A-QC001)
This benchmark uses 6 1Ux12:

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5Specifications
TypeMemory
Boot Drive
Metadata Drive
Storage Drive

Description
X11 Dual Node 12-bay Storage Server, use SSG-6119P-7804A-QC001 toorder
2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors
CLX 4208 2P,8C/16T 2.1G 11M 9.6GT 85W 3647 R1
16GB DDR4-2933 1RX4 LP ECC RDIMM, HF, RoHS
Kioxia XG6 256GB NVMe M.2 22x80mm <1DWPD, HF, RoHS
Samsung PM983 960GB NVMe PCIe3x4 V4 TLC 2.5" 7mm (1.3 DWPD)
WD or HGST 3.5"18TB SAS 12Gb/s 7200RPM HDD

NICManagement SW

AIOM Dual-Port 25GbE SFP28 based on Mellanox CX-4 Lx EN
Supermicro System Management Software Suite Node License

SystemCPUQty
12422121
1System Specification

Configurations• EC policy: 13/4 (=9+4 Reed-Solomon)• 12 HDDs per system• Service Network: 12 x 25Gbps, Backend Network: 12 x 25Gbps• S3 PUT performance: 5.2 GB/s
• S3 GET performance: 6.5 GB/s
• Different object sizes: 64 kiB, 512 kiB, 1 MiB, 4 MiB, 8 MiB, 16 MiB• Different number of parallel TCP connections: 384 connections, 10000 connections

Network Topology for Benchmark

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S3 GET Results

S3 PUT Results

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ActiveScale Software Overview
Quantum Corporation, founded in 1980, focuses on creating innovative technology and solutions to help our customers get
the most value from their data. Quantum is proud to offer the ActiveScale Object Storage system in its portfolio. ActiveScale
Object Storage is an early pioneer in the Object Storage market, emphasizing fully consistent, very low touch, and easy-toscale object storage solutions. ActiveScale is now wholly owned by Quantum, ActiveScale software is running in a multitude
of customer environments from less than a PB to multiples 100s of PBs under management.

SoftwareOperating system software

ActiveScale OS 6.0

Management interfaces
System analytics
Security
Data protection
Data durability
SW/FW upgrades

Real-time System Management Console, CLI, RESTful API
ActiveScale CM, a cloud-based storage analytics service
Data encryption in flight SSL/TLS using AES-256, Data encryption at rest using AES-256
Advanced Erasure Coding, Dynamic Data Placement, Versioning, Object Locking
Up to 19 nines, Dynamic Data Repair
Non-disruptive rolling upgrades

Supermicro Server Overview
SSG-6049SP-DE1CR90 Object Storage Server

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96119P-ACR12N4L

Value Proposition••

•

•

•

Density: Highest density storage and computing powerPerformance• Dual node configuration provides double processors and dram performance• Multiple expanders architecture maximizes drive performance.
Flexibility• Capacity and TCO software defined scale-out object storage• Flexible configurations to match different workloads
Quality• The architecture SW+HW is fully redundant (NSPOF)• Component compatibility verification• Enterprise serviceability with hot-swappable drives, fans, and power supplies• Server nodes can be replaced hot without disruption of other nodes in the chassis

Building Block modular design with the highest drive capacity

Supermicro Top Load Storage Design Enhancement••••••

Design for Easy Field Serviceability
Passive Mid-plane, Backplane
No CMA required
Tool-less access
Drawer type design
Twin server nodes can be replaced hot without disruption to other nodes (share nothing)

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10Minimum configuration for ActiveScale Object StorageActiveScale can also be configured with Supermicro SSG-6119P-7804A-QC001 systems which provide an entry-level
configuration for customers who wants to start small.
The entry level configuration: 3 X SSG-6119P-7804A-QC001 Server: Total of 648 TB (18 TB HDD)
• Optimized component integration for increased cost-effectiveness and reliability• Better energy efficiency with optimal thermal design and CRPS power supply (single 12V power source)• Great serviceability with the patented internal cable arm design• Tiered storage architecture (2x M.2 -> 4x NVMe/SATA SSD -> 12x 3.5” HDD), optimized for Object Storage applications

TCO Savings
Implementing our new 4U90 storage servers vs. previous generations can reduce 650-1200 KW/hr. in power consumption(Totaling $2M-$4M saving over three years) and reduce rack counts by 250-500 (totaling $21M-$48M saving over three years).
Below are comparisons of current platforms and saving estimates based on future implementation

Assumption

1) 1.2EB
2) Co-Lo $3K / month /rack3) $0.13KW-Hr
4) 3 Years

Form Factor Drive Size
Gen1 Storage HWGen2 Storage HWGen 3 (4U90)

4U36
4U60
4U90

6TB
8TB
18TB

Racks

CoLo Cost617
278
83$66,636,000$30,024,000$8,964,000

PowerConsumption (KW)
1758
1320
586

Power Costs($M)
$6.0
$4.5
$2.0

Services
Supermicro Global Services organization can support customers who require rack integration/configuration, installation,training, post-deployment hardware/software maintenance.

Summary
With no slowdown in sight for data growth, IT's imperative remains the same – find more efficient and effective ways to store
and protect the organization's vast store of valuable data. The correct storage architecture must simplify complexity and helporganizations take advantage of their data without requiring budgets to scale at the same pace as data growth. It shoulddeliver disk-based access performance from anywhere in the world, protect the data from loss with high durability, scale
without limits and be easy to manage. ActiveScale, a new class of storage built on patented object storage technology,
addresses these needs. Its architecture supports exabyte solutions and beyond with high data durability and high dataintegrity that disperse erasure encoded chunks across drives, chassis, and geographies, protecting against data loss and data
corruption. The distributed, scale-out design supports high-throughput performance even in a geo-dispersed deployment.
ActiveScale provides better resiliency and seamless adoption of new capacity as customers grow their way into the future.
With just 3 Supermicro 4U90 Storage Servers, over 17GB/sec can already be achieved. With more nodes, one can quickly
achieve 100’s GB/s. With industry leading $/GB, the storage density of 14.5 PB per rack, combined CapEx and OpEx savings,
Supermicro and Quantum can deliver a complete rack integrated, tested, ready-to-deploy Activescale object storage solutions
to customers immediately, Supermicro presents a best in class, low cost, up to 19 9’s availability, from 5PB on 3 4Ux90 to
multi-exabytes with Quantum Activescale which enables our customers to deploy any targeted size of Data Lake with great
confidence.

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11Additional Resources
Quantum ActiveScale www.quantum.com/object-storage
Supermicro Storage Servers https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/top-loading-storage
Supermicro Storage Servers https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/storage

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