HPC Systems Architecture
Today’s HPC Customers are presented with an overwhelming number of choices in processing technologies, from commodity x86_64 processors to dense multicore accelerators such as Cell BE and GPGPU’s, to prepriortory SMP and Vector. This decision is further complicated by the selection of interconnects (Infiniband, Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, etc) and operating system (Linux, Windows, Solaris, AIX, etc).
OCF solution experts can remove the challenge of selecting the correct technology for your HPC requirements by assessing the needs of the applications in use and environmental impact on the organization to determine the fastest return on investment.
OCF currently design and support HPC solutions based on the following technologies:
x86_64
x86_64 architectures such as the AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors offer wide support for the majority of applications on the market. A fantastic all around choice for everyday HPC needs, OCF has years of experience with IBM’s x86_64 product line, System X, and our accredited engineers will design and supply bespoke, turnkey x86_64 HPC solutions for all the work requirement.
IBM Power
The IBM Power Processing line has offered unrivalled performance on a solid, reliable platform for over 18 years. Available in both Beowulf and large SMP configurations, the large cache sizes, incredible memory bandwidth and industry leading clock speeds will ensure incredible time to results without the availability concerns that can come with commodity components. OCF’s engineering staff are fully accredited to the highest levels available from IBM for System P, each of which contains the IBM Power Processor.
Acceleration
Application acceleration technologies such as the Cell Broadband Engine, FPGA’s (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and GPGPU’s (General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit) have the potential to improve some application performance by more than 100x above traditional x86_64 architectures. This can lead to a massive savings in power, cooling and management costs by reducing the number of power hungry machines required to achieve a fast time to result. OCF’s development staff can work with you to determine the suitability of such architectures within your organisation.
Interconnects
Commodity/Beowulf Clustering presents significant challenges in overcoming bottlenecks between individual nodes. Some applications require information to be passed between processing elements quickly before they are able to scale, while others may need access to large amounts of bandwidth for disk I/O. OCF supply and support such high-bandwidth, low latency interconnects such as Infiniband and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. OCF networking experts will design and implement the ideal network interconnect for your HPC requirements, ensuring your applications can fulfil their maximum scalability potential.
Operating Systems
While most HPC clusters are traditionally viewed as large groups of servers running free versions of linux, the reality is that most Independent Software Vendors will only support a limited range of operating systems to minimize development costs. A large percentage of these ISV’s have only recently begun to support Linux-based operating systems, instead favouring more traditional OS platforms such as AIX, Windows and Solaris. OCF Integration Experts are accredited in the majority of *NIX implementations available and the Windows Server Platform, ensuring correct and timely installation of your HPC equipment, as well as it’s integration within your existing infrastructure.
For more information or to contact us, please e-mail: info@ocf.co.uk.
