OpenFlex™, the industry’s only open composable
infrastructure solution, helps scientists capture, share and
analyze patient data from multiple clinical imaging tools, across
different labs utilizing the agility, performance and scale of an
NVMe over Fabrics™ architecture
Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that the Institut
du Cerveau et de la Moelle Épinière (ICM Brain and Spine
Institute), an international brain and spinal cord research center,
selected Western Digital to update its storage infrastructure with
the extremely fast, efficient and flexible OpenFlex open composable
platform. Leveraging NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF™), ICM has more
extensive access to shared storage, which can be easily allocated
to meet any researcher or department need. ICM also now has quicker
access to critical data and the ability to resize and reallocate
storage volumes on demand, assisting in the fight against
neurological disorders.
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ICM Brain and Spine Institute Selects
Western Digital OpenFlex Solution to Speed up Time to Discovery of
Critical Cures and Treatment Options (Photo: Business Wire)
Scientists at ICM need to capture and analyze patient data from
an array of clinical imaging tools and across different labs.
Researchers have been hampered by an aging data storage
infrastructure that could not keep pace with their needs. The
latest advanced microscopy instruments can generate up to two
terabytes of data every hour, which is far more than each
workstation’s local storage can accommodate. This has created long
delays at each step in the analysis pipeline, where scientists had
to wait on the storage infrastructure to continue their work.
ICM worked with its technology partner, 2CRSi, to identify a new
storage innovation that could provide the perfect combination of
performance and flexibility, selecting Western Digital’s OpenFlex
Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure. OpenFlex provides ICM with
ultra-fast storage performance within a more efficient and flexible
architecture, allowing scientists to continually push their work
forward without having to wait for storage. For ICM’s IT
department, OpenFlex means no longer having to squeeze in local
storage close to workstations, or manually move storage around
campus as projects change. Instead, they can distribute storage
capacity over ICM’s Ethernet network wherever and whenever it’s
needed, without sacrificing performance.
Kurt Chan, vice president and general manager, Data Center
Platforms at Western Digital said, “Today’s clinical workloads
require fast, and highly reliable storage solutions to store
massive amounts of research and patient data. As the clarity and
resolution of clinical imaging increases, more bioimages need to be
centrally stored to accelerate evaluations and diagnostics. Our
OpenFlex open composable solution provides easy access to these
large bioimaging files in near real-time, helping to speed up time
to discovery of critical cures and treatment options.”
“Our scientists don’t want to worry about storage technology or
IT infrastructure, and with OpenFlex, they don’t have to,” said
Caroline Vidal, CTO at ICM. “We can provide fast, low-latency
access to imaging data, in up to four times the resolution than
researchers could work with before. The shared storage with NVMe-oF
is just there when they need it, so they can focus on using the
data and advancing their research.”
The benefits of Western Digital OpenFlex for ICM include:
- Breakthrough performance comparable to locally attached
storage: Researchers can now access high-performance storage in
various capacities, at the maximum throughput that ICM’s
50-gigabit/second Ethernet links can deliver. The solution also
assures the low latencies needed when working with high-resolution
image files—ICM reported 34 microseconds or less for most storage
operations.
- Faster time to discovery: OpenFlex performance has a
direct impact on ICM researchers’ lifesaving work, eliminating
delays and interruptions in the analysis pipeline. ICM scientists
can analyze and verify more clinical images per day, in up to 4x
the resolution than was possible before, and quickly retrieve
archived datasets when needed. As a result, they can advance their
understanding of neurological disease processes and develop novel
therapies more quickly.
- Architectural flexibility: With OpenFlex, ICM’s IT team
can quickly and easily allocate storage to meet any researcher’s
need and resize and reallocate storage volumes on demand. This
flexibility is essential as the institute adds more microscopes and
other instruments in the coming years, continually driving up the
resolutions and volumes of clinical imaging data.
- Efficient, cost-effective operation: With storage
centralized in the data center over a fabric, ICM’s IT team can
manage the solution much more easily. Maintenance and software
updates now take far less time and effort—a significant operational
saving compared to managing dozens of storage servers distributed
across the campus. Additionally, because storage is centralized,
any new microscopes added can use the same pool of capacity,
eliminating the ongoing capital expense of deploying more local
storage for each new device.
For more information, see the full ICM case study.
Western Digital continuously innovates, pushing the boundaries
of science and technology to deliver products that enable greater
data infrastructure efficiency and productivity with best-in-class
TCO. Its broad data center portfolio includes its family of
Ultrastar® HDDs and SSDs; WD Gold™ HDDs and SSDs; OpenFlex NVMe-oF
open composable infrastructure; Ultrastar storage platforms;
RapidFlex™ NVMe-oF controllers; and the Ultrastar memory extension
drive. Western Digital is also championing Zoned Storage, an
open-source, standards-based initiative building upon the synergies
of SMR HDDs and ZNS SSDs that enables data centers to scale
efficiently.
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About the ICM
Founded in 2010, the Brain and Spine Institute is a scientific
and medical research center of international excellence, located in
Paris at the heart of the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Its
innovative model brings doctors, researchers, patients and
entrepreneurs together in one place with a common objective: to
understand the brain and accelerate the discovery of new treatments
for diseases of the nervous system. The Institute thus includes a
network of more than 700 researchers and clinicians, ten
cutting-edge technological platforms, a clinical investigation
center and 1,000m² intended for incubation of startups. Since 2017,
the ICM has also been Station F's first health partner; this
establishment offers it a competitive advantage in the field of
connected health. This year, the Institute celebrates its tenth
anniversary.
About 2CRSI
Founded in Strasbourg (France), 2CRSi group develops, produces
and sells high-performance customised and environmentally friendly
servers. In the financial year 2019/2020, the Group achieved pro
forma turnover of €144.6m. The Group today has 352 employees and
markets its offer of innovative solutions (processing, storage and
network) in more than 45 countries. 2CRSi has been listed since
June 2018 on the regulated market of Euronext in Paris (ISIN Code:
FR0013341781) and is included in the European Rising Tech
label.
For further information please visit: www.2crsi.com
About Western Digital
Western Digital creates environments for data to thrive. As a
leader in data infrastructure, the company is driving the
innovation needed to help customers capture, preserve, access and
transform an ever-increasing diversity of data. Everywhere data
lives, from advanced data centers to mobile sensors to personal
devices, our industry-leading solutions deliver the possibilities
of data. Our data-centric solutions are comprised of the Western
Digital®, G-Technology™, SanDisk®, and WD® brands.
© 2020 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights
reserved. Western Digital, the Western Digital logo, G-Technology,
SanDisk, WD, OpenFlex, WD Gold and Ultrastar are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its
affiliates in the US and/or other countries. The NVMe and NVMe-oF
word marks are trademarks of NVM Express, Inc. All other marks are
the property of their respective owners.
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Erin Hartin Western Digital Public Relations 1-303-601-8035
erin.hartin@wdc.com
T. Peter Andrew Western Digital Investor Relations
1-800-695-6399 peter.andrew@wdc.com investor@wdc.com
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