"Penguin on Demand" extends cloud computing by making high-density HPC available as a service

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 11 -- Penguin Computing, experts in high performance computing solutions, today announced the immediate availability of "Penguin on Demand" -- or POD -- a new service that delivers, for the first time, a complete high performance computing (HPC) solution in the cloud. POD extends the concept of cloud computing by making optimized compute resources designed specifically for HPC available on demand. POD is targeted at researchers, scientists and engineers who require surge capacity for time-critical analyses or organizations that need HPC capabilities without the expense and effort required to acquire HPC clusters.

"The most popular cloud infrastructures today, such as Amazon EC2, are not optimized for the high performance parallel computing often required in the research and simulation sciences," said Charles Wuischpard, CEO at Penguin Computing. "POD delivers immediate access to high density HPC computing, a resource that is difficult or impossible for many users to utilize in a timely and cost-effective way. We believe POD will promote new and faster innovation by enabling access to scalable high performance computing to a much broader market."

POD: A Complete HPC Solution in the Cloud

POD provides a computing infrastructure of highly optimized Linux clusters with specialized hardware interconnects and software configurations tuned specifically for HPC. Rather than utilizing machine virtualization, as is typical in traditional cloud computing, POD allows users to access a server's full resources at one time for maximum performance and I/O for massive HPC workloads.

Comprising high-density Xeon-based compute nodes coupled with high-speed storage, POD provides a persistent compute environment that runs on a head node and executes directly on the compute nodes' physical cores. Both GigE and DDR high-performance Infiniband network fabrics are available. POD customers also get access to state-of-the-art GPU supercomputing with NVIDIA Tesla processor technology. Jobs typically run over a localized network topology to maximize inter-process communication, to maximize bandwidth and minimize latency.

"We have been working with Penguin Computing on their POD offering for several months, and we are very pleased with the results," said Dr. Natalia Trayanova, professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University and chief scientific officer at CardioSolv, a company specializing in predictive cardiac modeling and simulation. "We found significantly better scaling when we switched from a traditional cloud solution to POD, which is essential in enabling us to deliver relevant results in a reasonable amount of time."

Penguin Computing offers a full range of expert support and services for POD customers, providing a complete HPC solution in the cloud. Support is included for POD application set-up, creation of the HPC computing environment, ongoing maintenance, data exchange services and application tuning. In addition, POD includes persistent storage for local data and user-defined compute environments. Additional services are available through Penguin's Professional Services.

"Penguin Computing has been providing ready-to-run HPC clusters, optimized software environments and professional services for years. Penguin on Demand is an innovative way for our customers to take advantage of our HPC expertise combined with Penguin-designed HPC clusters to meet the real-time demands of their business," said Tom Coull, senior vice president and general manager of Products and Engineering at Penguin Computing.

For more information about Penguin on Demand (POD), go to www.penguincomputing.com/POD/Penguin_On_Demand.

About Penguin Computing

Penguin Computing, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., specializes in complete, integrated HPC clustering solutions. Penguin has been a successful innovator for over a decade, providing Linux HPC solutions to a variety of industries. Penguin's staff, including the originator of the Beowulf Cluster architecture, has unsurpassed experience in delivering a powerful combination of fully integrated HPC clusters, comprehensive cluster management software, and services. For more information about Penguin Computing and Penguin products, go to http://www.penguincomputing.com.

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Source: Penguin Computing