  SAGE (Percipient StorAGe for Exascale Data Centric Computing) is a European
Commission funded project towards the era of Exascale computing. Its goal is to
design and implement a Big Data/Extreme Computing (BDEC) capable infrastructure
with associated software stack. The SAGE system follows a "storage centric"
approach as it is capable of storing and processing large data volumes at the
Exascale regime.
  SAGE addresses the convergence of Big Data Analysis and HPC in an era of
next-generation data centric computing. This convergence is driven by the
proliferation of massive data sources, such as large, dispersed scientific
instruments and sensors where data needs to be processed, analyzed and
integrated into simulations to derive scientific and innovative insights. A
first prototype of the SAGE system has been been implemented and installed at
the Julich Supercomputing Center. The SAGE storage system consists of multiple
types of storage device technologies in a multi-tier I/O hierarchy, including
flash, disk, and non-volatile memory technologies. The main SAGE software
component is the Seagate Mero Object Storage that is accessible via the Clovis
API and higher level interfaces. The SAGE project also includes scientific
applications for the validation of the SAGE concepts.
  The objective of this paper is to present the SAGE project concepts, the
prototype of the SAGE platform and discuss the software architecture of the
SAGE system.
