Case Study: European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL‑EBI) achieves scalable 120PB data management and seamless global access with NetApp FlexGroup (ONTAP)

Biology and Big Data Make a Big Difference in Europe

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL‑EBI) collects, stores, and distributes massive biological datasets to millions of researchers worldwide to support work from biomedicine to biodiversity and agri‑food research. Facing 27 million daily web requests, 120 PB of raw storage across three data centers, and extremely metadata‑heavy file systems — all managed by a tiny storage team — the Institute needed a robust, cost‑effective platform that wouldn’t create technical barriers to open science.

EMBL‑EBI deployed NetApp ONTAP with NetApp FlexGroup volumes, a solution developed to eliminate metadata limitations and simplify management for small teams. NetApp engineers and partner Q Associates helped migrate unusually large datasets and refine the product against real EBI data; the result is scalable, reliable storage that preserves open access to growing datasets, reduces operational overhead, and lets scientists focus on research rather than data management.

EMBL

Zander Mears

Storage System Administrator