The tender invitation concerns procurement of a national data storage-system distributed among two locations with a minimum of 5 petabyte net storage capacity, with high-performing internal communication and a policy-driven storage control system which supports both file-, block- and object-storage.
The goal is the upgrade and replace the existing national infrastructure for research data. The existing infrastructure consists of a data storage-system located at the University of Oslo, in addition to a smaller resource in Tromsø. It has been decided upon an architecture that requires a 2-site configuration for data security (by way of data replication). The University of Tromsø will be the first of the locations, while the second will be decided at a later point in time (likely by the conclusion of the procurement).
The data-infrastructure is a general-purpose research infrastructure and is not adapted to specific disciplines or competencies. The infrastructure will be attached to 2 HPC systems (HPC A1 and B2). The interconnect between the HPC systems and the storage-system will be secured in a separate procurement.
The planned installation date for NIRD is 1.11.2016. The primary goal of the proposed solution and the criteria for a successful tenderer will be to maximise the scientific productivity in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO).