220 IBM NeXtScale System Planning and Implementation GuidePlatform Cluster Manager Advanced Edition deploys the entire cluster through asingle self-serve request and delivers a fully configured and running cluster thatis ready to use without other steps for configuration and startup. It managesphysical and virtual machines, storage clients, and network switches.8.3 IBM General Parallel File SystemThe IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) is a high-performance,shared-disk file management solution that provides fast, reliable access to acommon set of file data, online storage management, scalable access, andtightly integrated information lifecycle tools that can manage petabytes of dataand billion of files.By virtualizing your file storage space and allowing multiple systems andapplications to share common pools of storage, GPFS provides you the flexibilityto transparently administer the infrastructure without disrupting applications, thuslowering storage costs and reducing management overhead.GPFS ensures that there is no single point of failure. Unlike some file systemsdesigns, GPFS is not reliant on centralized management to determine filelocation and placement. This ensures continuous and highly available access todata in case of software or hardware node failures.IBM GPFS powers many of the world’s largest scientific supercomputers andcommercial applications that require high-speed access to large volumes of data,as shown in the following examples: Digital media Engineering design Business intelligence Financial analytics Seismic data processing Geographic information systems Scalable file servingIBM GPFS provides the following features: Clustered Network File System (CNFS)By using IBM GPFS, you can configure a subset of the nodes in the cluster toprovide a highly available solution for exporting GPFS file systems by usingNetwork File System (NFS). The participating nodes are designated asCluster NFS (CNFS) member nodes and the entire setup is frequentlyreferred to as CNFS or a CNFS cluster.
