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Home / Infrastructure design / Network and storage
Keeping the accelerators fed
A non-blocking east-west fabric and storage fast enough that the expensive part of the cluster is never the part that is waiting.
What it is
Network and storage, in plain terms
A non-blocking east-west fabric and storage fast enough that the expensive part of the cluster is never the part that is waiting.
Non-blocking fabric
Spine and leaf sized to the traffic, with oversubscription stated.
Parallel storage
Throughput matched to checkpoint and dataset patterns.
RDMA where it earns it
InfiniBand or RoCE, chosen rather than defaulted to.
Measured, not assumed
Benchmarked at handover against the design targets.
How it works
How network and storage is delivered
- 01State the oversubscriptionEvery design has a ratio. Ours is written on the drawing rather than discovered under load.
- 02Rails, not just portsEach accelerator gets a mapped path, so collective traffic stays predictable as the cluster grows.
- 03Pick RDMA deliberatelyInfiniBand or RoCE, chosen against the workload and the operating team you actually have.
- 04Tier the storage honestlyAn NVMe tier for checkpoints and hot data, capacity behind it, and metadata sized because it is usually the bottleneck.
- 05Benchmark at handoverThroughput and latency measured against the design targets, and the numbers handed over in writing.
In the field
Network and storage on site
What the work looks like once it is on the floor.
Detail
What is included
| Topology | Spine and leaf, rail-optimised where the workload calls for it. |
|---|---|
| Speeds | 25/100/400G, sized to the node count and the pattern. |
| Storage | Parallel file system, NVMe tier and capacity tier. |
| Testing | Throughput and latency benchmarked and written down. |
| Documentation | Cable schedules, port maps and a tested runbook. |
Watch
Watch: how we approach network and storage fabric
Watch
FILMFilm Network and storage fabric walkthrough · 2:05
Support
Common questions
How is it priced?↓
Fixed price against a defined scope. Ongoing operation is quoted separately as a monthly service.
Do you supply the hardware?↓
We specify it and can procure it, but it stays on your balance sheet.
Can a partner sell this under their own name?↓
Yes. Design and build are delivered white-label where a partner holds the customer.
Next step
Tell us what you are building and we will tell you what it needs.
An hour with our engineers, no charge. Bring a floor plan, a workload, or just the problem.