National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) Deploys DataDirect Networks Storage to Achieve Significant Performance Improvement in World-Class Genomics Research and Collaboration for Oral Cancer

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

News Facts

• As the first research institution in India devoted to genome-based research for human health and disease, the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) is taking a bite out of oral cancer with its world-class research into the most common cancer among males in India with the help of state-of-the-art solution comprising block, file and object storage solutions from DataDirect Networks (DDN).
• To fuel its cutting-edge cancer research, the institute has deployed a full platform solution that includes DDN^® SFA^® high-performance storage, the massively scalable GRIDScaler™ parallel file system and WOS^® object storage platform, to better handle Big Data ingest, processing, storing, collaboration and disaster recovery.
• NIMBG uses massively-parallel DNA sequencing to process huge amounts of DNA sequence data to perform meaningful scientific interpretations and analyses,  generating up to 500TBs of data on 500 oral cancer patients as part of its initiative under the aegis of the International Cancer Genome Consortium. With its legacy storage platform, it became increasingly difficult to ingest large datasets from next-gen sequencers and feed them to High-Performance Compute (HPC) clusters fast enough, and then securely share both raw data and results for collaboration and publishing purposes.
• After deploying DDN's high-throughput, highly scalable and reliable storage solutions, NIBMG scientists have achieved a significant improvement in data ingest time over its previous storage platform, enabling the team to run concurrent sequence analysis of twice as many patients, while translating results for broader research benefits in as little as three-to-four months.
• As a result, a team of Indian scientists has identified new genes and biological pathways specific to oral cancer associated predominantly with smokeless tobacco consumption in India. Further detailed study on these discoveries may lead to finding better therapies for oral cancer faster.
• DDN's high-throughput, scalable storage powers more than one-third of the world's top genomics centers, along with a rising number of leading clinical and pharmaceutical research sites.

Tweet this: India's 1st biomedical institute, #NIBMG, accelerates #OralCancer research through @DDN_Limitless #ObjectStorage http://bit.ly/XOkIWf

DDN Expedites Time to Insight and Lowers TCO with Industry-Leading Throughput and Scalability

• DDN's best-of-class file and object storage is designed to ingest data quickly and easily into NIBMG's research environment and then help simplify data analysis as well as securely share raw data and results for collaboration and publishing.
• With DDN technology, NIBMG can sustain the highest levels of performance to ensure simultaneous sequencer ingest and HPC research on thousands of large data sets.
• DDN's WOS Object Storage is highly versatile, serving as a data backup for crucial research results as well as an active archive to make it easier for NIBMG to share ideas and results with research groups around the world.
• Based on the ease with which the institute can expand capacity without having to replace systems, NIBMG is already seeing benefits from DDN storage. Additionally, due to the high-density of the DDN platform, NIBMG has been able to manage and administer data storage more efficiently.

Supporting Quotes

Dr. Nidhan K. Biswas, Young Biotechnologist Awardee at NIBMG:

• "By performing our computations on faster storage, we will be able to complete our research in much less time. With slower storage, it might take up to a year to process our data but now we can complete it within three-to-four months, which enables us to translate results for broader research benefits much faster and more effectively."
• "One of the biggest advantages of parallel processing is that we can run jobs for about 40 patients concurrently, which is twice what we could handle before, accelerating analysis for a larger number of patients. DDN's industry-leading scalability means that we can grow in place to support petabytes of vital research data as we continue to manage the ICGC and other projects."
• DDN's scalable, reliable storage and integrated collaboration and archive solution for research communities is ideally suited for NIBMG. We have a lot of confidence that DDN will continue to help us manage explosive data growth while ensuring more actionable research results and faster cures for deadly cancers."

Bikram Roy, systems analyst at NIBMG:

• "The main reason we chose DDN was the high performance throughput and the ability to scale up or out in order to have high performance storage and fast ingest and analysis in the same platform."
• "We felt that DDN was best suited to help us quickly and easily process a large amount of fixed, raw data to produce meaningful interpretations for further analysis of genetic mutations and cancer-causing changes in DNA. Dealing with thousands of very big files requires a huge processing pipeline, along with unprecedented IOPS and bandwidth performance, all of which DDN provides."
• "The beauty of WOS is its infinite scalability without an underlying file system. There are no overwrites means our data is safe for whatever retention period we need, and it has lots of space for both backup and collaboration."

Supporting Resources

• NIBMG Case Study
• Learn more about SFA
• Learn more about GRIDScaler
• Learn more about WOS
• Follow DDN via Blog and Twitter

About DataDirect Networks

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world leader in massively scalable storage. Our data storage and processing solutions and professional services enable content-rich and high growth IT environments to achieve the highest levels of systems scalability, efficiency and simplicity. DDN enables enterprises to extract value and deliver business results from their information. Our customers include the world's leading online content and social networking providers, high performance cloud and grid computing, life sciences, media production, and security and intelligence organizations. Deployed in thousands of mission critical environments worldwide, DDN's solutions have been designed, engineered and proven in the world's most scalable data centers to ensure competitive business advantage for today's information powered enterprise. For more information, go to www.ddn.com or call 1-800-837-2298.

©2014 DataDirect Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.  GRIDScaler™ is a trademark of DataDirect Networks, Inc.^®  DDN^®, Storage Fusion Architecture^®, SFA^®, and WOS^® are registered trademarks of DataDirect Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

DDN Media Contact:
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Sr. Director, Global Corporate Communications
Email: [email protected]
Work: 408-990-2658

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