Researchers at NASA have adopted a tape-less Hitachi archiving system, which will store scientific data about the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Ozone Monitoring Instrument Data Processing System (OMIDAPS) project will store and retrieve data from a Hitachi Content Archive Platform.
“Information that is difficult or slow to acquire hampers our research so we wanted to find an archival technology that would automate and accelerate search and retrieval queries, keep everything on disk and still be easy to use,” said Curt Tilmes, computer scientist, NASA.
The US-based OMIDAPS gathers scientific data in relation to the Earth's atmospheric composition. This archived information is used in the study of the ozone layer and in diagnosing the planet’s current climate change.
The archive will also be used to store test data created by the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP), as part of its efforts in monitoring global environmental conditions.
The real benefit to the researchers is that the system allows them to escape the latency of tape backup, Tilmes said.
“We can input our data and retrieve that information without experiencing the latency of a tape-based infrastructure,” he said.
According to Tilmes, the system allows NASA scientists to “stay focused on contributing to the health of our planet”.