Halfway to the Cloud: Cluster Management as a Service

By Michael Feldman

August 26, 2010

A lot of high performance computing is liable to end up in public clouds in the coming years. Besides avoiding the initial capital outlay for an HPC system, one of the biggest attractions to external clouds is being able to foist cluster administration on someone else. Despite the plethora of cluster management tools available, dealing with the complexities of HPC clusters is still mostly an art. And because high performance computing is somewhat of a niche, the number of people that can honestly claim the title HPC system administrator is relatively small.

But what if you require an in-house HPC set-up, for whatever reason (security, need for specific hardware, cost benefit of continuous usage, etc.) and still don’t want to mess with the burden of cluster administration? It turns out there is an alternative.

A company called X-ISS offers a managed service that allows organizations to outsource system administration for in-house HPC clusters. Founded in 1993 by Deepak Khosla, X-ISS is a Houston-based IT management company that has been in the HPC management business for the last 10 years. They currently manage several thousand nodes across about 500 separate installations. Their HPC services product, appropriately named ManagedHPC, is mostly aimed at clusters between 4 and 256 nodes, but at least one customer has a system with a few thousand servers.

Apparently the company has made a decent business out their HPC services offering, which they characterize as “turnkey outsourced system management.” According to Khosla, X-ISS has been growing at 20 percent per year over the past five years.

The company’s pitch is that they let an organization focus on its core competency, whatever that domain happens to be, relieving the company of the bother of maintaining an HPC admin support staff. This is essentially the same advantage offered by the cloud model, but in this case, the infrastructure is customer-owned and on-site. The provided service manages all the hardware, cluster provisioning, and vendor support issues. If something goes wrong, the customer just calls up X-ISS or opens a ticket with them. “If you have people that are really interested in their core expertise, they can pretty much turn their cluster over to us,” says Khosla.

Cluster support is performed remotely for the most part, requiring someone on-site only to perform physical reboots when the machine gets really stubborn. Application submissions and restarts are also handled locally, in much the same way as a cloud scenario. But if a fan fails or a memory chip gets fried, X-ISS calls the appropriate vendor to get it swapped out. Then X-ISS will reprovision the system remotely to get the system back up and running. When new software or patches need to be installed, the company does this as well. Of course, the appropriate vendor maintenance contracts need to be in place; X-ISS just takes over the task of managing that support.

As part of the service, X-ISS analyzes system usage and generates quarterly reports. To do this, they employ their home-grown DecisionHPC software to perform the monitoring, tracking and reporting. DecisionHPC is also sold as a separate product, its commercial availability having been announced last week. As with the service itself, data collection and analysis is performed at an X-ISS facility, only requiring a tunnel to the HPC machine to execute remote commands.

The company sells its HPC service both directly and through partnerships. X-ISS teams with Tier 1 vendors like as IBM, Microsoft and Dell to offer managed HPC services on top of the vendor’s offering. According to Khosla, these vendors like that relationship because it removes a sale roadblock for fussy customers who might otherwise balk about having to add special admin support for a new cluster. X-ISS also deals directly with end users, especially in the oil & gas sector, taking advantage of its Houston locale to leverage that customer base.

ManagedHPC prices start at just over $1,000 per month for small clusters. The price calculation is based primarily on cluster size and the number of applications, but other factors, like special customer requirements and the environment, can also come into play. Khosla maintains this delivers good ROI for the customer since they don’t have to bring in a full-time admin who needs Linux or Windows-based HPC expertise. Adding specialized IT staff can be a scary prospect for customers, he says. They’d rather just treat these machines like mainframes that come pre-wrapped with support.

HPC usage has plenty of challenges, and system administration is just one of them. However, it’s worth pointing out that two of the most talked about pain points — the price of HPC hardware and its energy consumption — are actually trending in the customer’s favor. The cost of FLOPS is declining and number of FLOPS/watt is increasing. At the same time, the cost of cluster management support will probably keep rising, since it depends upon human labor. As such, X-ISS may have sweet spot for customers who aren’t yet ready for the cloud, but lack the expertise to support their own HPC systems.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

Nvidia Appoints Andy Grant as EMEA Director of Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI

March 22, 2024

Nvidia recently appointed Andy Grant as Director, Supercomputing, Higher Education, and AI for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). With over 25 years of high-performance computing (HPC) experience, Grant brings a Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire