HPC User Site Census: Networking Technologies

November 15, 2019|Addison Snell, Christopher G. Willard Ph.D., Laura Segervall

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Intersect360 Research surveyed the High Performance Computing (HPC) user community to complete its eleventh Site Census study. The study is a look at their
current computer system installations, storage systems, networks, middleware, and application software supporting these computer installations. This
report provides a detailed examination of HPC systems and technologies installed among responding HPC user sites. Our goal in this analysis is to provide
an overview of how HPC systems are configured, including the breadth of technologies most commonly used.

Our Site Census survey results can be found in many reports, including the following:

HPC System Configurations and Technologies
HPC System Vendors Installed
HPC Storage Configurations and Technologies
HPC Storage Vendors Installed
HPC Networking Technologies
HPC Processing Technologies (Including Accelerators)
HPC Operating System Installations
HPC Middleware and Tool Installations
HPC Application Installations (segmented into application domains):
- Biosciences
- Business: Business intelligence, analytics, pattern recognition, ERP, CRM, security, complex event processing, general business
- Chemistry
- Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
- Engineering: Structural analysis, electronic design automation (EDA), general engineering
- Finance and economics
- Geophysics
- Physics
- Scientific research
- Visualization and image analysis
- Weather modeling, climate modeling, environment modeling

This report looks at networking technologies elements for HPC environments, including system interconnects, storage system interconnects, and local
area networks (LANs). This analysis includes a look at both the speeds and types of networking components used and the vendors selected for these
technologies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Methodology

Total Responses

HPC NETWORKING TECHNOLOGIES

Definitions

System Interconnects

Figure 1: System Interconnects (including Primary and Secondary) of Reported HPC Systems

Storage Interconnects

Figure 2: Storage Interconnects of Reported HPC Storage Systems

Local Area Networks (LANs)

Figure 3: LANs Reported in HPC Site Census

Comparisons Across Locales (System, Storage, LAN) for Ethernet and InfiniBand

Table 1: Interconnect Distribution Across Three Locales

Figure 4: Ethernet Distribution Across Three Locales, 2014 vs. 2018 Surveys

Figure 5: InfiniBand Distribution Across Three Locales, 2014 vs. 2018 Surveys

Table 2: Named Interconnect Vendors for HPC Systems, Storage, and LANs

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