Welcome Sigma2 and NIRD

Welcome Sigma2 AS and NIRD to Lefdal Mine Datacenter. The national storage Infrastructure for Research Data has officially been declared opened by the Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, Ola Borten Moe. Present at the ceremony was also the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Sigbjørn Gjelsvik. They both focused on the importance of physical security and future-orientated services that strengthens research and protect national security.

Lefdal Mine Datacenter has in addition started to build out the infrastructure for the next national super computers that Sigma2 will host in our facility starting next year.

Our partners IBM and Move AS are providing the storage solution to NIRD. NIRD has one of the leading solutions delivered by IBM in Northern Europe. Rittal has delivered IT containers with tailored design for Sigma2.

– Norway as a research nation depends on us being able to store and share data safely. Today we have good news for everyone. Now the data storage options are greatly improved, and researchers get access to new and future-oriented services that strengthen research and protect national security, says Minister of Research and Higher Education, Ola Borten Moe.

– To be competitive, Norwegian researchers must have access to e-infrastructure at a high international level. NIRD enables research collaboration that can contribute to worldwide knowledge in several important areas, says Sigma2’s Managing Director, Gunnar Bøe.

– It is a great inspiration that Sigma2 has designated LMD as the data center that best meets current and future needs. Reuse of mountain facilities, short-distance and renewable electricity, efficient cooling solutions and flexible technical designs in all result in sustainable and cost-effective operations for Sigma2. It is a great motivation for the LMD team to be able to help build the engine for research environments in Norway, says the CEO of LMD, Jørn Skaane.

The storage service, which goes by the abbreviation NIRD (Norwegian Infrastructure for Research Data), is owned by Sigma2. NIRD is Norway’s largest storage capacity and has a capacity of 32 petabytes (PB) but can be expanded to as much as 70 PB if necessary. This corresponds to the storage space of more than 15 million DVDs. The new offer replaces a 24 PB storage system that reached maximum capacity earlier this year.

– The data volume from research is constantly increasing, and we need to ensure scalability and flexibility to meet demand, says Special Advisor and Service Owner for NIRD in Sigma2, Francesca Iozzi. – Now, researchers can look forward to state-of-the-art storage services that support artificial intelligence, machine learning, data-intensive analysis and archiving.