Case Study: J. Craig Venter Institute achieves scalable, high-performance, cost-efficient genomics storage with NetApp

JCVI Supports Groundbreaking Genomics Research with NetApp Storage

The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is a nonprofit genomics research institute (founded 2006, >300 staff, 250,000+ sq ft of labs) that faced staggering data growth—nearly 80% annually—from high‑throughput sequencing and other research. After merging multiple sites the institute had mixed EMC and NetApp systems and urgently needed a flexible, scalable, high‑performance, and cost‑efficient storage infrastructure to support mission‑critical databases, NFS compute grids, and rapidly expanding projects.

JCVI consolidated and upgraded to a NetApp environment—deploying a FAS6080 cluster, V6240/V3070 V‑Series controllers, Flash Cache Virtual Storage Tier, SnapMirror/Snapshot, deduplication and FlexVol—virtualizing EMC arrays and tiering cold data to SATA. The change reduced controller count, saved tens of thousands on disk costs, increased I/O and reduced latency, delivered >60% dedupe for virtual desktops, consolidated 400TB under two IT staff, and improved data protection and scalability to support continued genomic research.

J. Craig Venter Institute

Eddy Navarro

Senior Manager, IT