About the innovator

Seagate is the world’s leading provider of data storage devices, equipment and services. As of 2018, Seagate was the largest Hard Disk supplier in the world. Seagate Systems UK is an arm of Seagate that is involved in performing Research and Development of Storage Systems platforms. The research team's focus is on building concepts and prototypes suitable for next generation storage systems. The  team was involved in architecting and building SAGE, a next generation data storage system suitable for extreme scale computing, extreme data analysis and AI.The research team is also involved in multiple other EU collaborative initiatives especially focussed on storage and I/O requirements for extreme scale.

SAGE project on Twitter

What is the innovation

We have developed a next generation object storage solution and its "ecosystem" components  to be ready for extreme computing and big data analysis,  in the SAGE project.  The object storage is a software driven technology that works with commodity storage hardware components, enclosures and processors. The object store can be accessed through an API ( Application programming Interface) by applications and third party tools. The definition of the API which is called "Clovis" is openly available. The object storage technology is market ready. The Clovis API can be used by third party data management tools, programming environments, performance analysis tools and data analysis stacks -  as we have shown in the SAGE project. 

Out of the lab. Into the market

The object store was formulated from scratch after a series of "requirements gathering" workshops with the extreme computing community experts. Hence it is not a software subsystem which was patched from an existing solution but fully developed from the ground up. To make it suitable for extreme computing, it was important to gather deeper "co-design" requirements from the next generation of extreme computing and extreme data applications. Hence it was important to include those types of cutting edge use cases in the SAGE project, which we believe would help the object store to come out of the lab. Plans are being formulated at the moment, internally, to make it an integral part of future product roadmaps and hence capitalise on the the technology. The Clovis API definition which is openly available, we believe, will help the uptake of the object store more widely.

Benefits of participation in Horizon 2020

Participation in the Horizon 2020 programme has helped the team to reach out and work directly with collaborators and early adopters of our technology in the EU. The team was able to work with and get requirements for data storage from cutting edge next generation use cases in the realm of scientific computing. The researchers were also able to work with complimentary technologies such as big data analytics and performance tools which are important components of the "ecosystem" around the core technology. The object store was also hardened to get closer to product readiness in course of continuous usage and testing within the project. As part of the dissemination actions within the project, wider awareness of the technologies we work on was also developed.

This innovation was funded via H2020 project SAGE

Team behind the innovation

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