Open Source Software in HPC

By Nicole Hemsoth

December 17, 2012

HPC clusters first emerged in universities and research centers that required extra compute power but had limited budgets.  The development of open source Linux-based operating systems and management tools was a natural evolution.

However, because open source tools are created by a variety of different organizations, no one solution offers a complete all-in-one product. Organizations therefore often need to tap into multiple open source projects to obtain everything they need to manage a cluster environment.  They then need to get everything working together and educate their users on how to use each component. 

According to IDC, software remains the biggest roadblock for HPC users because parallel software is lacking and many applications run into issues such as scalability. The number of cores per processor and per cluster continues to increase and new programming paradigms are needed to increase efficiency.  As clusters grow larger and more complex, sophisticated management tools are required. Setting up and monitoring a cluster can become very difficult – this is especially true for heterogeneous environments that are dependent on multiple generations of technology that support a variety of applications and multiple user groups. The complexity further increases when organizations deploy multiple clusters — whether they are within the same datacenter or across a global organization – or move to a cloud-based model.

When addressing open source software for HPC

Despite the pervasiveness and benefits of open source software, it is not without its pitfalls for those organizations that lack the expertise needed to integrate, maintain and operate a stack of open source software. The associated costs can manifest in many ways – such as increased time spent on system administration, troubleshooting problems due to lack of formal support channels, or the cost of regression testing in-house.  Administrators may also experience reduced productivity due to cluster downtime, support issues and issues due to low utilization of resources.

Organizations often experience additional education expenses associated with maintaining an open source environment. They will likely also experience creeping operational costs as they find themselves not only in the research business, but in the software maintenance business.

Comparisons between open source and commercial software often assume the alternatives have equal merit

This can be true for database software or scripting languages in areas where open source software is more widely recognized. However, in more specialized areas, open source software may not exist at all or provides less functionality and requires more effort to install and integrate.   Some needed capabilities that emerge as critical elements include Web management consoles and portals, software provisioning tools, reporting and analysis tools, and tools to facilitate application integrations.

Often additional factors contribute to cost and risk when using open source software.  This includes a lack of reliable technical roadmaps or the task of important software maintenance such as performing updates or applying security.

So how do you weigh the benefits of open source software? 

Total cost of ownership (TCO) varies based on unique requirements for each organization.  Measuring your TCO is about finding the right balance.  Clearly open source software is here to stay and organizations should consider many factors when deciding on the degree to which to deploy commercial or open source software. Some of these considerations include the cost of software, risk associated with deploying a variety of solutions, the complexity of the environment, and the expertise of the staff. Often these considerations are interrelated – such as in the case of selecting open source software for lower cost reasons, but in doing so creating a higher element of risk and added complexity in the environment.

The decision whether to deploy open-source or commercial software for HPC is sometimes painted as a either/or choice. In practice, however, organizations have a range of different options.  The figure below illustrates a range of alternatives between purely open and commercial solutions. The shape of the TCO curve will vary depending on the environment.  For most organizations, being at one extreme or the other is likely to be expensive and limits their downstream flexibility. 

IBM TCO Chart

Productivity is Key

This is particularly true when evaluating the total cost of ownership. If we purely focused on acquisition cost, it’s easy to overlook other factors such as putting measures in place to track throughput and utilization of workloads. Utilization is crucial to getting the most from your infrastructure investment.  Improving utilization minimizes additional resource acquisition costs and helps ensure that wait times for resources are minimal so that results are achieved in less time.  Another consideration related to productivity is the time it takes to install a complete cluster environment, have it ready for full productive use and educate users on how to use the cluster so they can run their simulations and analyses productively.

Future proofing is very important

As a cluster environments evolve, we need to ensure that extensibility exists in the environment to support future requirements. As user requirements and applications evolve, features such as system monitoring and alerting tools, workload management systems, support for an increasing number of specialized workload types, and ease-of-use features including user-centric web portals become increasingly important.

For more information

TCO estimates will vary based on many factors including the nature of the installation, in-house capability, types of applications and cost of down-time.  As you choose between open-source and commercial alternatives, there are many different costs related to administration and productivity. 

IBM Platform Computing has developed a whitepaper and recorded Webcast that guide you through evaluating the true cost of deploying and managing an HPC environment.  If you are interested in receiving a TCO evaluation of your HPC environment, please contact IBM.   

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!

Mystery Solved: Intel’s Former HPC Chief Now Running Software Engineering Group 

April 15, 2024

Last year, Jeff McVeigh, Intel's readily available leader of the high-performance computing group, suddenly went silent, with no interviews granted or appearances at press conferences.  It led to questions -- what's Read more…

Exciting Updates From Stanford HAI’s Seventh Annual AI Index Report

April 15, 2024

As the AI revolution marches on, it is vital to continually reassess how this technology is reshaping our world. To that end, researchers at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) put out a yearly report to t Read more…

Crossing the Quantum Threshold: The Path to 10,000 Qubits

April 15, 2024

Editor’s Note: Why do qubit count and quality matter? What’s the difference between physical qubits and logical qubits? Quantum computer vendors toss these terms and numbers around as indicators of the strengths of t Read more…

Intel’s Vision Advantage: Chips Are Available Off-the-Shelf

April 11, 2024

The chip market is facing a crisis: chip development is now concentrated in the hands of the few. A confluence of events this week reminded us how few chips are available off the shelf, a concern raised at many recent Read more…

The VC View: Quantonation’s Deep Dive into Funding Quantum Start-ups

April 11, 2024

Yesterday Quantonation — which promotes itself as a one-of-a-kind venture capital (VC) company specializing in quantum science and deep physics  — announced its second fund targeting €200 million. The very idea th Read more…

Nvidia’s GTC Is the New Intel IDF

April 9, 2024

After many years, Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) was back in person and has become the conference for those who care about semiconductors and AI. In a way, Nvidia is the new Intel IDF, the hottest chip show Read more…

Exciting Updates From Stanford HAI’s Seventh Annual AI Index Report

April 15, 2024

As the AI revolution marches on, it is vital to continually reassess how this technology is reshaping our world. To that end, researchers at Stanford’s Instit Read more…

Intel’s Vision Advantage: Chips Are Available Off-the-Shelf

April 11, 2024

The chip market is facing a crisis: chip development is now concentrated in the hands of the few. A confluence of events this week reminded us how few chips Read more…

The VC View: Quantonation’s Deep Dive into Funding Quantum Start-ups

April 11, 2024

Yesterday Quantonation — which promotes itself as a one-of-a-kind venture capital (VC) company specializing in quantum science and deep physics  — announce Read more…

Nvidia’s GTC Is the New Intel IDF

April 9, 2024

After many years, Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) was back in person and has become the conference for those who care about semiconductors and AI. I Read more…

Google Announces Homegrown ARM-based CPUs 

April 9, 2024

Google sprang a surprise at the ongoing Google Next Cloud conference by introducing its own ARM-based CPU called Axion, which will be offered to customers in it Read more…

Computational Chemistry Needs To Be Sustainable, Too

April 8, 2024

A diverse group of computational chemists is encouraging the research community to embrace a sustainable software ecosystem. That's the message behind a recent Read more…

Hyperion Research: Eleven HPC Predictions for 2024

April 4, 2024

HPCwire is happy to announce a new series with Hyperion Research  - a fact-based market research firm focusing on the HPC market. In addition to providing mark Read more…

Google Making Major Changes in AI Operations to Pull in Cash from Gemini

April 4, 2024

Over the last week, Google has made some under-the-radar changes, including appointing a new leader for AI development, which suggests the company is taking its 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

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…

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…

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…

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…

Eyes on the Quantum Prize – D-Wave Says its Time is Now

January 30, 2024

Early quantum computing pioneer D-Wave again asserted – that at least for D-Wave – the commercial quantum era has begun. Speaking at its first in-person Ana Read more…

GenAI Having Major Impact on Data Culture, Survey Says

February 21, 2024

While 2023 was the year of GenAI, the adoption rates for GenAI did not match expectations. Most organizations are continuing to invest in GenAI but are yet to Read more…

Intel’s Xeon General Manager Talks about Server Chips 

January 2, 2024

Intel is talking data-center growth and is done digging graves for its dead enterprise products, including GPUs, storage, and networking products, which fell to Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire