EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Intersect360 Research surveyed the High-Performance Computing (HPC) user community on a wide range of technology issues. The complete study analyzes users’ current computing systems, storage systems, networks, cloud computing usage, and selected purchasing criteria. Our goal in this analysis is to provide an overview of how HPC systems are configured, including the breadth of technologies most commonly used.
Intersect360 Research defines HPC as the use of servers, clusters, and supercomputers—plus associated software, tools, components, storage, and services—for scientific, engineering, or analytical tasks that are particularly intensive in computation, memory usage, or data management. Intersect360 Research reports available in this HPC Technology Survey report series include the following segmentations:
- Server Technologies and Configurations: including system vendors installed, segmentation of systems into classes (entry-level, midrange, high-end, supercomputer), system interconnects, and usage of liquid cooling
- Storage Technologies and Configurations: including total active HPC data; storage configurations spanning on-node, attached storage arrays, and cloud storage; parallel file system usage; and interdependence of storage and server elements for purchasing
- Processing Elements—CPUs and Accelerators: including installations and user preferences for both CPUs and accelerators, independently and in combination, plus configuration options and interconnects
- Cloud Computing: including proportion of computing and storage in public cloud for HPC and top named cloud vendors
This report provides a detailed examination of system vendors, system interconnects and liquid cooling installed among responding HPC user sites. This analysis includes both a look at the type of system interconnects and cooling systems used across different segments and the projected usage in the future. For system interconnects, this includes multiple speeds of Ethernet and InfiniBand, as well as Omni-Path, Cray Slingshot, Fujitsu Tofu, and Atos BXI.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
INTRODUCTION 5
Methodology 5
What Is HPC? 6
Total Responses 6
Table 1: Total Estimated Clusters in Respondent Organizations 7
HPC SERVER TECHNOLOGIES AND CONFIGURATIONS 8
Definitions 8
Current System Vendors 8
Figure 1: Current System Vendors 9
Figure 2: Current System Vendors: Commercial/Industrial Segment 9
Figure 3: Current System Vendors: Academic Segment 10
Figure 4: Current System Vendors: Government Segment 11
Segmentation of Systems into Classes 11
Table 2: HPC Cluster Size & Current Population 11
Table 3: HPC Cluster Size: Commercial/Industrial Segment 12
Table 4: HPC Cluster Size: Academic Segment 12
Table 5: HPC Cluster Size: Government Segment 12
Liquid Cooling 12
Figure 5: Current Liquid Cooling Usage 13
Figure 6: Current Liquid Cooling Usage: Commercial/Industrial 14
Figure 7: Current Liquid Cooling Usage: Academic 14
Figure 8: Current Liquid Cooling Usage: Government 15
Figure 9: Liquid Cooling Future Plans 16
Cluster Interconnects 16
Figure 10: Cluster Interconnects 17
Figure 11: Cluster Interconnects: Commercial/Industrial Segment 18
Figure 12: Cluster Interconnects: Academic Segment 19
Figure 13: Cluster Interconnects: Government Segment 19
Figure 14: Cluster Interconnect Future Usage 20
CONCLUSIONS 20
APPENDIX A: SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS 21
Table A1: Geographic Region of Respondent 21
Table A2: Economic Sector of Respondent Organization 21
Table A3: Number of Employees for Respondent Organization 21
Figure A1: Role of Survey Respondent in Organization 22
Figure A2: HPC Purchasing Responsibility of Respondent 22
Figure A3: Total Annual HPC Budget of Responding Organization 23