Is VAST like PFS? - TerrenceMcGuinness-NOAA/global-workflow GitHub Wiki

VAST and PFS (Parallel File System) are both storage solutions in high-performance computing environments, but they serve different purposes and use different architectures.

VAST Data Platform

VAST is a modern storage architecture designed for all-flash environments that focuses on:

  1. Disaggregated storage: Separates compute resources from storage resources
  2. All-flash architecture: Built specifically for NVMe flash storage
  3. Scale-out design: Can grow horizontally by adding more storage nodes
  4. Universal storage: Provides a unified platform for block, file, and object storage access
  5. Global namespace: Single namespace across the entire storage infrastructure

Parallel File Systems (PFS)

PFS solutions like Lustre, GPFS (IBM Spectrum Scale), BeeGFS, and Ceph are designed for:

  1. Distributed data access: Multiple compute nodes can access data simultaneously
  2. Striping across storage targets: Data is distributed across multiple storage devices
  3. High throughput: Optimized for parallel I/O operations
  4. Metadata handling: Separates metadata servers from data storage for better performance
  5. HPC workloads: Specifically optimized for scientific computing applications

Key Differences

  • Design Philosophy: VAST is designed for flash-native storage with simplified management, while traditional PFS solutions were originally designed for spinning disk architectures (though they've evolved)
  • Data Protection: VAST uses erasure coding schemes specifically designed for flash, while PFS solutions offer various RAID or erasure coding options
  • Protocol Support: VAST supports NFS, SMB, S3, and other protocols natively, while many PFS solutions require additional components for certain protocols
  • Management Complexity: VAST aims to simplify management compared to traditional PFS solutions, which often require more specialized expertise

In a high-performance computing environment like the one at NOAA where you're working, VAST might be used alongside traditional parallel file systems, each serving different storage needs based on workload requirements, performance characteristics, and access patterns.