Case Study: Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa achieves high-performance computing and storage consolidation with Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Data Systems and the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa: The Union of 2 Greats Creates Innovation

Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, a leading education and research institution, faced growing storage and data-management challenges as it built the DREAMS high-performance computing environment. Its existing, group‑owned storage systems could not cope with the volume, performance, security or scalability needs of large-scale simulation and data‑intensive research, so the school engaged Hitachi Vantara to design an integrated storage solution using Hitachi NAS Platform 3090 systems, Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2500/2100 and Hitachi NAS Platform cluster software, supported by professional services.

Hitachi Vantara implemented two infrastructures—an AMS 2100 for general IT services and an HNAS cluster (2×3090 nodes plus an AMS 2500, 180 TB total)—delivering up to 1.6 GB/s and ~200,000 IOPS per node. The deployment consolidated disparate research and administrative storage into a centrally managed platform with unified capacity planning, improving manageability, scalability and data access while producing measurable cost savings and enabling the DREAMS HPC, 3D and Lab initiatives to scale.

Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa

Vincenzo Barone

Professor of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Head of DREAMS Project