ELEMENTS Achieves Highest Ever Performance Metrics

ELEMENTS has achieved the highest ever performance metrics in the SPEC VDA benchmarks.

This is a result which guarantees unprecedented performance for the company's video storage systems. This remarkable performance is achieved using the BeeGFS file system, developed by technology R&D specialist ThinkParQ.

SPEC (Standards Performance Evaluation Corporation) is a not-for-profit body established to provide independent testing, with the goal of enabling users to make scientifically based choices on technology. It has established the video data acquisition (VDA) test, which quantifies server network performance by measuring the number of concurrent streams it can support. These are simulated, volatile video signals at around 36Mb/s per stream.

In the tests, an ELEMENTS BOLT array, using BeeGFS, achieved 11,000 concurrent streams, almost 15% more than the best delivered by competing systems. In doing so, its CPU efficiency was 107% better than the competitor. Together, these demonstrate real-world benefits of greater throughput, more stable and secure operation, and a reduced environmental impact.
"“Of course, you can distort tests like VDA by throwing huge amounts of processing power at the challenge," said Heiner Lesaar, CTO of ELEMENTS. "It is important to understand that the system we submitted for test was typical of the architecture a media enterprise would actually use. These excellent results can be achieved by anyone who chooses an ELEMENTS storage network."

Contributing significantly to the benchmark success is the technology partnership between ELEMENTS and ThinkParQ, a spin-off from Fraunhofer ITWM, Center for High-Performance Computing, part of the world-renowned Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. Its goal is to develop the fastest, scalable, flexible and robust solutions, to be implemented in all industry sectors which demand performance-oriented environments.

The BeeGFS file system achieves high performance by transparently striping data across multiple storage nodes, with associated metadata also managed across multiple servers. The system has been used by organisations such as NASA, Shell and the Max Planck Institute. This structure makes it an ideal core technology for the intensive media networks provided by ELEMENTS, where ultimate reliability, resilience and very low latency are vital. BeeGFS will be available on ELEMENTS BOLT and ELEMENTS ONE towards the end of 2021.

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