DDN, Gatan Partner On Storage To Handle Microscopy Workflows

By Bio-IT World Staff

August 7, 2017 DataDirect Networks has announced a strategic partnership with Gatan to deliver groundbreaking solutions for microscopy research environments and workflows. The DDN and Gatan partnership will combine DDN’s high-performance data storage platform with Gatan’s high-performance cameras to fully leverage the power of the latest technologies in electron microscopy.

Over the past several years, DDN and Gatan have been deployed together in leading life sciences sites like The Scripps Research Institute and Van Andel Research Institute, and are now collaborating on forward-looking products.

“Massive increases in instrument data are revolutionizing life science and materials research and, at the same time, are placing unprecedented demands on storage,” said Robert Triendl, senior vice president of global sales, marketing, and field services at DDN in a press release. “At DDN, we are known for tackling the most data-intensive, technical computing environments. Gatan’s leading camera technologies create the type of demanding, high-performance environments in which DDN’s unique capabilities allow our customers to do more, and to do it faster than traditional enterprise storage. We are excited to team with Gatan to address not only today’s challenges but future ones as these technologies advance.”

Within recent years, dramatic advances in cameras for in-situ and cryo-electron microscopy have led to data rates exceeding 10 gigabytes per second. While Gatan’s latest high-resolution microscopy cameras are providing ever improving spatial and temporal resolution to the world’s top research projects, they are also producing immense volumes of digital data at unprecedented rates. This data growth from increased resolutions and frame rates has out-paced the ability of traditional storage solutions to support current microscopy workflow performance and scale requirements adequately. According to the company, DDN’s storage uniquely supports reliable, fast instrument data ingest as well as analysis, archive, collaboration, publication, and data protection without the need for costly, cumbersome infrastructure silos.

“Gatan cameras are well-known for producing the highest quality image and video available for scientific research and analysis. To take advantage of these capabilities, they need to be paired with data solutions that allow for fast, easy data accessibility,” said Sander Gubbens, president at Gatan in the same press release. “As we analyzed storage solutions, DDN’s storage platform was a remarkable stand-out in the market. It allows the management of end-to-end microscopy workflows, from high-performance, multi-instrument ingest, to simultaneous high-speed analysis—all within a single platform—and allows Gatan’s high-end cameras to perform at full capacity – now and well into the future.”

Most storage solutions in the market today suffer bottlenecks that will not allow for simultaneous ingest and egress of high-rate microscopy data. Conversely, the combined DDN/Gatan solution allows ingest and egress to happen simultaneously. This simultaneous processing enables organizations to accelerate time to results and to optimize the use of their high-resolution, high-speed sensor equipment—thus increasing return on investment and maximizing the value users can achieve.

DDN storage platforms are ideal for high-resolution microscopy environments in life science, material science and product design, semiconductor design and production, and oil and gas research, among others. DDN solutions can scale to support from one to many high data rate instruments where each instrument may require from megabytes to >10 gigabytes per second each. DDN solutions efficiently grow to hundreds of petabytes of capacity and speeds of up to terabytes per second, delivering high performance, industry-leading density, and scalability for core workflows. DDN storage, combined with Gatan’s suite of high-resolution camera solutions, including the K3, K2, K2 IS, OneView, Rio, STEMx, and 3View, is enabling new levels of productivity and advances in microscopy workflows.