Features

The difference between blades and clusters, or rather between blade-based distributed-memory systems and rack-mounted distributed-memory systems, has led from time to time to the following question: Are the two types of systems variations of a common type or two separate types? (Or more simply: Are blades clusters?) Table 1 compares data on blade-based systems and…

As published in HPCWire In 2007 Tabor Research established the supply-side and demand-side research methodologies to determine the size and dynamics of the High Productivity Computing (HPC) market. From a technology perspective, we are investigating the products and services that complement the server or cluster portion of the HPC market, in order to establish the…

As published in HPCWire SGI announced this afternoon that it has purchased the “software, patents, technology and expertise” of Linux Networx Inc. (LNXI) through an all-stock transaction. Although there has been no official statement saying so, LNXI is believed to have shut it doors. However, some of LNXI’s technology, particularly the Clusterworx Advanced software suite,…

As published in HPCWire This week saw the inaugural meeting of HPC Horizons, a new community of HPC users, vendors, and policymakers dedicated to collaborative discussion of forward-looking topics that push the boundaries of High Productivity Computing. The two-day conference had 125 attendees and featured speakers that represented both traditional and emerging HPC applications. Tabor…

As published in HPCWire Gaining an Edge: Wall Street Firms Expand Productivity in “Edge HPC” Arena High Performance Computing – or as it is increasingly called, High Productivity Computing – continues to drive innovation and profits for a wide range of industries. Today, technological evolution is driving HPC in new directions with non-traditional “Edge HPC”…

As published in HPCWire Traditional HPC and Edge HPC — The Same Only Different Tabor Research is in the midst of conducting in-depth end-user interviews with organizations running or considering Edge HPC applications (see http://www.taborresearch.com/edgemarket.html for Edge HPC definition). As we have completed the initial interviews several similarities and difference between the two branches of…

As published in HPCWire The announcement of each new TOP500 list and especially those with systems that break the triple order of magnitude barrier in flops tend to get me thinking about the meaning of the term “supercomputer.” This term has been with us at least since the 1970s (if you know of any earlier…

As published in HPCWire Anticipating the Fall: Application Performance Has Chased Multicore’s Speed Right Over a Cliff Wile E. Coyote is doomed. Hanging in space, he is about to fall, and everyone knows it but him. We all saw it coming. Poor Coyote. Yet strangely, he doesn’t fall right away. According to the alternate-reality rules…

As published in HPCWire Server partitioning – one of the many implementations of IT virtualization – has for the last half decade seen strong interest within commercial computing environments. This interest has been driven in large part in response to the population explosion of small servers that occurred in the first part of the decade.…

As published in HPCWire HPC: The Software Industry Gulag…or More Pointedly, Where is SAP for the Rest of Us? If one were to categorize the enterprise software market as mature, robust, innovative — and definitely 21st century — as it races headstrong into the cloud — how would one categorize the HPC software market? Not…