Burst Buffer

Definition

A burst buffer is a fast, intermediate storage layer positioned between compute nodes and a parallel file system. Burst buffers use node-local or rack-level NVMe SSDs to absorb write bursts from compute jobs, then drain data to the parallel file system in the background. This smooths I/O peaks, reduces contention on the shared file system, and improves overall job throughput. NERSC’s Perlmutter uses a 35 PB Lustre system with burst buffer capabilities.

Written by
Daniel Kovacs

Updated Feb 11, 2026

Ansible

An open-source IT automation tool for configuration management and orchestration, widely used for HPC cluster and data center provisioning.

BeeGFS

A high-performance parallel file system with distributed metadata, simple administration, and built-in high availability for HPC and AI workloads.

Ceph

An open-source distributed storage platform providing unified object, block, and file storage with automatic data distribution and self-healing capabilities.

CXL

Compute Express Link â€” an open interconnect standard enabling high-speed communication and memory sharing between CPUs, accelerators, and memory devices.

Data Lake

A centralized repository storing raw data in its native format at scale, supporting diverse analytics workloads from batch to real-time processing.

Deduplication

A data reduction technique that eliminates duplicate data blocks, significantly reducing storage consumption in backup and primary storage systems.