Distributed data management with PetaShare

PetaShare is an NSF funded project which aims to solve the distributed data sharing and management problem. Data-aware storage systems, data-aware schedulers, and cross-domain metadata scheme are some of the key technologies being developed in order to prepare an underlying infrastructure for scientist to manage the low-level data handling issues. The initial system which manages 250 Terabytes of disk storage and 400 Terabytes of tape storage has been deployed across the state utilizing the 40Gb/sec LONI connection at five campuses: Louisiana Tech., University of New Orleans, Tulane University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Louisiana State University. PetaShare enables collaboration between those institutions and helps multidisciplinary research in different application areas such as coastal and environmental modeling, geospatial analysis, bioinformatics, medical imaging, fluid dynamics, petroleum engineering, numerical relativity, and high energy physics.