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Creating an edge with HPC

Creating an edge with HPC. Andrew Jones IDC HPC User Forum, Imperial College London, 16 Oct 2008. HPC: what & why?. computation is a strategic business activity across most industries research, aerospace, automotive, logistics, financial, ... HPC is an accelerator of computation

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Creating an edge with HPC

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  1. Creating an edge with HPC Andrew JonesIDC HPC User Forum, Imperial College London, 16 Oct 2008

  2. HPC: what & why? • computation is a strategic business activity across most industries • research, aerospace, automotive, logistics, financial, ... • HPC is an accelerator of computation • can create competitive edge • by optimising your use of HPC facilities

  3. An edge? • Look to differentiate • Do something faster/better/cheaper • than your competitors

  4. How to create an edge with HPC? • Get results faster: more powerful HPC facility • Get better results: more powerful HPC service • Reduce costs: more cost-effective HPC service • Optimise business processes surrounding HPC

  5. More powerful HPC? • Faster (more?) hardware • Use dense FLOPS: GPU’s, accelerators, etc

  6. More cost-effective HPC? • Commodity hardware • “Green” hardware & datacentres • Deploy hardware in scale with needs • Use cheap FLOPS: GPU’s, accelerators, etc

  7. Why only look at hardware? • Applications deliver the results • together with the user, the application software • contains the (embedded) expert knowledge • Hardware is just an engine ...

  8. Software can create a better edge • Get results faster: optimise and scale the code • Get better results: scale and enhance the code • Reduce costs: more efficient use of hardware • and also of power, datacentre, etc • Optimise business processes surrounding HPC

  9. HPC: what & why? • HPC is an accelerator of computation • HPC = hardware + software + people • Enable users & business to differentiate • by investing in expertise and hardware

  10. A Research Councils UK High End Computing Service

  11. HECToR • Mission: enable capability science • Provide world class supercomputer(s) • Capability usage model • Comparable scale investment in expertise • Computational Science & Engineering (CSE) • Capability support model

  12. Enhance capability science • User requirements capture for HECToR identified the need for strong provision of CSE support to enhance the capability science enabled by the capability supercomputer

  13. History

  14. What is CSE? • Computational Science & Engineering • i.e. the engineering & science of computation • Parallelisation, scaling & optimisation • Algorithm development & innovation • Functional enhancements & re-factoring • Software engineering for robustness

  15. CSE support service • 120+ person-years • ~60% embedded in user community • secondments to specific research groups for several months • or staff within research group funded by HECToR for several months • staff managed by, and part of, NAG team

  16. Summary

  17. Summary • HPC = hardware + software + expertise • Create an edge by optimising all three • HECToR supports better capability science through a strong investment in HPC software expertise with the community

  18. End Expertise in algorithms and software engineering Delivered as HPC services, specialist consulting & libraries

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