For DDN’s Alex Bouzari, Big Data is the Democratization of HPC

By Michael Feldman

November 6, 2012

DataDirect Networks (DDN) is one of the few specialist storage vendors that has weathered the storm of industry consolidation. The company has managed to remain independent and focused on its HPC business, while others like BlueArc, Engenio, XtremIO, and Whamcloud got scooped up by larger companies with more diverse business goals. We recently spoke with DDN CEO Alex Bouzari to get his take on the industry churn and other trends that are reshaping the storage market.

DataDirect Networks CEO Alex Bouzari  

HPCwire: Alex, we’ve all noticed that the storage market has been changing very rapidly in the last few years — a lot of consolidation on the business side, and a lot of new technologies have been emerging, especially in relation to the big data application space. How has all this affected DDN?

Alex Bouzari: You’re absolutely correct. Big data is now here, although everybody’s interpretation of what it is, is different. The way we look at is that big data is simply the democratization of HPC. It’s basically the ability to deal, at scale, and in a distributed way, with large quantities of content, which is what HPC is. It’s a very positive development for HPC players.

With respect to the consolidation in the storage industry, we have found ourselves in this interesting position of not only being the largest private storage company in the world, but we are also now being tracked by IDC, in the top six lists that they maintain. It’s given us more visibility into customer environments, simply because the CIOs and IT managers who are looking at their options for big data, now notice us because we’re on their radar.

The flip side to that is that a lot of the big players — EMC and NetApp — are now talking a lot about big data. That’s creating an opportunity for people who are considering revising their IT infrastructure to look for alternate solutions. It’s been a very positive turn of event — the expansion of the addressable market — with the big data market becoming broader. And the publicity the big guys are now giving to big data, which, by the way, I think is going to benefit all the people in the HPC space — in fabrics and interconnects, in processors, and in storage.

HPCwire: So what kind of new platforms and storage architectures do you think are going to come about as the result of the big data application space? Is storage going to fundamentally change in some way?

Bouzari: Yes, we think it is going to change. Short term, it’s going to change by having some additional components inserted into the mix, which will make the ability to ingest, store and process big data easier, faster and more cost effective. Longer term we think the architecture will evolve.

Solid state memory is now getting to price points that make it attractive to some big data and HPC applications. Our SFA 7700 offering, which we’re going to announce at the Supercomputing Conference, is a hybrid storage solution that combines solid state and spinning disk, and does so for big data applications. It provides significantly better performance than an enterprise-type hybrid solution.

It comes down to the speed of solid state, in IOPS, the bandwidth of solid state, a large number of spindles, and the price point of low-cost spinning disks. All of that applied with some intelligent algorithms that tie the solid state into the spinning disks, results in a platform suitable for big data and HPC-type workloads. So we’ve taken a different approach architecturally to solving the problem of hybrid storage solutions.

The other aspect is that with all the developments happening in the world of processors and the significant investment Intel is making in enabling HPC to move faster, in our view, there will be a long-term shift in software being the enabling factor for heavy workloads like big data and HPC. And that software will gives organizations the ability to capture content from any source, store it in the most cost-effective way possible, either inside the datacenter or in the cloud, process it extremely rapidly, and make it available to users in a distributed way.

We think the nature of software as it relates to storing, processing and distributing content is going to change in a fundamental way. Processing power is becoming free; storage is becoming free. But what is not free is the ability to bring the content in, process it, and take it back out. That still requires huge amounts of infrastructure and software. So we think the commoditization of the hardware, which will take place over the next decade, will have to be enabled by really intelligent software that ties the pieces together.

We started moving in that direction three or four years ago, when we began embedding file systems inside our storage architecture. We’re taking it one step further by tying in solid state with disk. And now we’re actively working on next-generation architectures — three, five, seven years out — which are really aimed at solving this end-to-end problem where content can be anywhere and the users need processed content delivered anywhere.
HPCwire: Are you considering getting into turnkey appliances wrapped with Hadoop-type stacks or other big data software packages? Is that type of integration something that interests your company?

Bouzari: The SFA 7700, which is our hybrid appliance that combines solid state and disk, combines a management layer on top to give our customers something that is plug and play, easy to manage, and optimized for their big data workloads. It shows users what is going on — hot spots, what is being over-utilized, under-utilized, and so on. It also has self-correcting mechanisms.

The world is moving in the direction of appliances. In our case, we started going down that path as we broadened our market penetration in HPC, below the top 100 supercomputers. In the latest list we have 60 percent of those top systems, since we’ve always focused on the needs of customers at the high end.

But what is noteworthy is that we’ve increased the number of customers in the top 500 by 30 percent. So we now have a total of 150 customers for those systems. Many of the ones below the 100 mark are customers looking not just for the benefits of a high performance storage solution for their workloads, but ones that can be deployed very easily, since they don’t always have the expertise, budget and staff to do the things that the big guys are doing.

We think appliance-sizing what the big guys have enjoyed for quite some time with DDN, and making it available in the 7700 solution, will greatly benefit our customers in the HPC space, which is really the core of our business.

HPCwire: As you build these types of appliances, it seems like you be able to offer something that is more generally applicable across a range of application domains. Do you intend to stay focused on HPC?

Bouzari: The way we think of big data, whether its internet content creation and distribution, social media, digital security, genomics, oil & gas, or financial services, these markets are really an extension of high performance computing. So are we expanding in markets adjacent to HPC? Absolutely.

More than 50 percent of our revenue today comes from outside “core” HPC. However in terms of the requirements, the technology roadmap and what our engineers are working on is very much HPC-centric. The attributes that are required to do a good job outside of core HPC really have to do with things like ease of use, ease of management, appliance-sizing the solution, compatibility with the mainstream enterprise solutions, and optimizing with some of the enterprise databases.

But at the core, in terms of the ability to ingest lots of content, store it very cost-effectively, process it extremely fast, and make it available to users — whether it’s a big government lab or a firm on Wall Street — it’s very, very similar.

The main differences is that within HPC we have the benefit of having rocket scientists, who know everything and want to tinker with solution to optimize it themselves, whereas in the broader enterprise customer base, they still want all these capabilities, but they want it to be easy to manage, plug compatible, and certified for their environment. So we do that. But the bulk of our R&D spend is in HPC.

In fact, a year ago we kick-started our exascale initiative to develop the ground-breaking technologies required for that level of computing and storage to become a reality — a cost-effective reality. We’ve put in place a $100 million R&D effort to support that work.

So we’re very much HPC at heart. It just so happens that HPC is a much bigger market and it’s called something else: big data.

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!

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. 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. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany 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 field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named 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…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech 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…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y 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…

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…

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…

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

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…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N 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…

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…

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…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire