Virtual Compute to Pack SAN

A Houston-based service provider that's aiming to offer so-called "utility computing" to large companies in various scientific fields says storage networking will be a key part of its offering.

Virtual Compute Corp. is just getting its "on-demand" computing network up and running. It has installed 512 servers from RLX Technologies Inc. as part of what's planned to be a 25,000-node clustered network in five years' time.

Spokesman Robert Coulter isn't ready to say whose SANs will be used, but he says Virtual Compute is testing solutions and will be offering up to 2 Tbytes of networked storage for every 64 nodes of the cluster.

The SAN gear will offer extra storage capacity for customers, such as scientists working on biomedical data, seismic analysis, or other compute-intensive tasks.

Ultimately, the SAN vendor selected by Virtual Compute could wind up with an order for over 400 disk arrays.Virtual Compute's 512-server cluster is being set up to run in an underground data center contracted from Westlin Corp., which provides a range of Internet-based services, including collocation and disaster recovery.

Virtual Compute offers its own Internet-linked backup service, using custom-made servers based on Linux software from Red Hat Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT)

Mary Jander, Site Editor, Byte and Switch