An Update on ECMWF's Next Generation IO for the IFS Model

Starting 2014, ECMWF has embarked on a 10 year research programme on HPC Scalability, aiming to achieve Exascale numerical weather prediction systems by 2025.
ECMWF operational forecast generates massive amounts of I/O over very short bursts, accumulating to tens of TB/day, from which millions of user-defined products are generated.
Based on expected model resolution increases, by 2020 we estimate the operational model will output over 100 TB/day and need to archive over 400 TB/day.

Given that the I/O workload is already one of the strongest bottlenecks in ECMWF's workflow, this is one of the main challenges to reach Exascale NWP.
ECMWF will report progress of its developments under the NextGenIO H2020 project, where ECMWF is researching how to best apply forthcoming I/O technologies to its workflow.
In particular, we will present the adaptation of IFS I/O server to the use of NVRAM technologies as a way to buffer large amounts of forecast outputs en route to the product generation and archival systems, thus avoiding file system I/O within the operational critical path.