From June 10 to 12, EOC organized "DLR Storage Technology 2024" at Gut Ulrichshusen. Already for the tenth time, IT experts gathered at the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau to discuss current trends and innovations in storage technology. Since its founding in 2002 this conference has developed into an important platform for major research institutions and companies to link up and share their experience.
Group image of DLR Storage Technology 2024
Since the first Storage Conference in 2002, the event has seen itself event has been a forum for providers and users of storage storage technologies.
Image: 1/6, Credit:
DLR / Hedtke
View of the conference venue: The watermill of the Ulrichshusen estate
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DLR / Hedtke
A view of a section of the exhibition space
Leading storage technology companies presented their latest hardware and exhibition showcasing their latest hardware and software solutions for processing, backup and archiving applications.
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DLR / Hedtke
In a relaxed and collaborative atmosphere 84 participants from 41 companies and institutes received valuable indications of the latest developments and best practice in the field of storing and archiving large quantities of data in the petabyte range. In addition to seven DLR institutes, other research bodies of the Helmholtz Association (Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research) and the Zuse Institute Berlin were represented.
The lectures covered a variety of topics such as data security, data availability, scalability, flexibility, and easy access to interfaces. Special attention was paid to hardware aspects like the use and advantages of magnetic tapes for data storage. Although these seem at first glance to have disappeared from the daily routine, they remain essential in modern storage and archiving environments. The reasons include data security (key word: air gap, or having physically separate data copies on tape), energy efficiency, and reducing CO2 emissions as well as the space required at computer centres.
As the best conference presentation, Josef Weingands (IBM) look back at tape and its prospects, "Nothing new concerning tape for the past 70 years? – the ultimate Tape Update 2024" was chosen.
In addition, leading storage technology companies presented their latest hardware and software solutions for processing, backup and archiving applications in an exhibition. Here, every conference visitor had the opportunity to examine flash storage systems, disc arrays and rackmount tape libraries at close quarters.
After the evening events, which took place against the scenery of the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau, technical discussions could be continued at greater depth in a relaxed atmosphere.
EOC supports technology developments in the context of data storage and archiving and operates at the DLR locations in Neustrelitz and Oberpfaffenhofen a long-term archive for remote sensing data, namely the German Satellite Data Archive. Here, valuable research data are safeguarded for future analysis and made available around the clock.
The prospective planning, constructing and operating of the required research data infrastructure are essential for this. Long-term data are, e.g., required for climate research. So the EOC "TIMELINE" project analyses time series extending over a 40-year period. Gradual changes like ocean warming over the course of decades can thus be identified and quantified at high spatial resolution.
For this reason, data from the MOS instrument of the Indian earth observation mission IRS-P3 (1996-2004) can also be processed and safeguarded as part of the "ESA Heritage Space Programme" in the "IRS-P3 MOS European Data Set Curation" project.
