User Interfaces

HPSS S3

The HPSS S3 (Simple Storage Service) interface is an object storage interface popularized by Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3. Users may list, get, put, and remove HPSS files. Like AWS S3/Glacier, users must issue an s3 restore-object to fetch a file on HPSS tape before the user is allowed to get the file from HPSS disk.

HPSSFS-Fuse on HPSS 11.3

Linux applications benefit from a near-POSIX standard read-write file system interface. This interface enables HPSS to be mounted as a Linux file system in user space (Fuse). Customers are using HPSSFS Fuse with Open SSL (encrypted file transfer solution), MinIO (S3 object storage solution), OpenStack (object storage solution), SaMBa (Microsoft Windows file sharing), NFS (POSIX file sharing), DSpace (restful open digital repository solution), and Bacula (site backup solutions).

HPSS for IBM Storage Scale (GHI)

Intended for HPC use, HPSS can be coupled with IBM Storage Scale (built upon GPFS) to automatically:

Copy files from Storage Scale to HPSS
Purge Storage Scale files that are not being used when space thresholds are reached
Recall files from HPSS when accessed by Storage Scale users
Save a point-in-time snapshot of Storage Scale.

HPSS for Storage Scale allows multiple Storage Scale file systems to be managed by a single HPSS.

API/PIO

The Client API/PIO (Parallel I/O) is the most powerful interface in terms of control, performance, and rich functionality. The HPSS Client API is the foundation of every HPSS interface, and customers have ported open source applications including:

pFTP and FTP

The high-performance file transfer protocol (FTP) interface moves files in and out of HPSS at high data rates. Standard FTP and the HPSS high-performance Parallel FTP commands are both supported. Download the HPSS Admin Guide from our HPSS Documentation page for details of these FTP commands.

HSI and HTAR

The Hierarchical Storage Interface (HSI) provides a familiar UNIX shell-style interface for managing and transferring files. HPSS parallel file transfers are done automatically. HTAR is a utility for storing groups of files using the POSIX TAR specification and a high-performance multithreaded buffering scheme to transfer files directly to and from HPSS. Download the HSI/HTAR Installation Guide and the HSI Reference Manual from our HPSS Documentation page for more information.

OS	HPSS S3	HPSSFS Fuse 11.3¹	GHI 4.2	pFTP FTP	HSI² Gateway	API³ PIO⁴
RHEL 8.x	X	X	X	X	X	X
RHEL 9.x	X	X	X	X	X	X
Ubuntu 22.04		X		X	X	X
SLES 15		X		X		X
HPSS 11.3 client interface compatibility matrix

HPSS Client Interface Compatibility Matrix

HPSSFS Fuse servers available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 64-bit kernels.
HSI gateway available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 64-bit kernels. HSI and HTAR clients run on a number of platforms.
HPSS User Interface Client support for operating systems not listed in the table may be provided by special services. See HPSS Offerings for offering details, and contact us.
The PIO (Parallel I/O) API requires the Client API.

HPSS Offerings