HPE Expands HPC Lineup; Targets Deep Learning, Lustre, and FS

By John Russell

April 4, 2016

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for the second straight week introduced new server products with today’s launches aimed at high performance computing. The centerpiece is a GPU-accelerated deep learning platform (Apollo 6500) whose announcement coincides with start of NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) being held this week in San Jose. HPE also announced a Lustre storage solution (Apollo 4520) and three ‘purpose-built’ servers for financial services (FS) based on Apollo and Moonshot products.

There’s little question that deep learning and its various siblings (cognitive computing, machine learning, et al.) are increasingly important in HPC and the enterprise. The Apollo 6500 is a dense CPU/GPU machine in a relatively small footprint that can accommodate up to eight GPU cards in a single chassis. “We had a product a few years back, the SL6500, and this is the latest version of that. It will debut with the Intel Broadwell processor,” said Bill Mannel, vice president and GM of HPC, Big Data, and IoT at HPE.

Broadwell was formally launched just last week – it’s the Xeon E5-2600 processor v4 and Intel’s first processor to be offered within Intel’s Scalable System Framework. The new chip integrates processor, fabric, storage and memory technologies and was designed for use in two-socket motherboards, which is what the Apollo 6500 has. Broadwell is expected to accelerate many HPC codes, perhaps in the high 40-percent range. (For more on Broadwell, see ‘Broadwell’ Launch Brings Intel’s Advanced Scale Framework Into Focus, HPCwire)

The Apollo 6500 will run NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, and the Intel Xeon Phi, said Mannel. To help drive adoption of the 6500 (and deep learning more generally) HPE is providing three sets of tools intended to support a wide variety of users. The main three are:

  • Cognitive Computing Toolkit. “If you are a scientist or engineer familiar with using MatLab or R then the cognitive computing toolkit will look very familiar and allow you to get up to speed very quickly on deep learning. The plan is to release this as an open source product,” said Mannel. Components are derived from HPE Software (including Vertica) and recent work in HP Labs, according to Mannel. The CCT is focused mainly on structured and semi-structured data and intended “to help ramp customers up in to memory centric computing and deep learning,” Mannel said.
  • HPE IDOL (Version 11. 2). This is HPE’s platform for advanced enterprise search and data analytics for unstructured data with machine learning. HPE says it lets you search and analyze text, image, audio, and video from virtually any source. Mannel described the offering as well-suited for use with newer network technology being applied to a variety of deep learning type workloads.
  • Haven OnDemand. Think of this as “deep learning as a software-as-a-service for different workloads,” said Mannel. There are on the order of 60 APIs for a wide variety tools such as for audio-video analytics, format conversion, graph analysis, image analysis, policy, prediction, and text analysis, to name a few.

HPE reports that when used with GPU computing platforms like the NVIDIA Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform, the 6500 “provides maximum GPU processing capacity” across a broad ecosystem of tools. The 6500 is designed to support deep learning computing platforms and application programming interface models such as Caffe, CUDA, Torch, Theano, Tensorflow, the NVIDIA Deep Learning SDK.

HPE_Deep Learning_6500

According to Mannel, demand for ‘deep learning’ is currently greatest in video and audio analysis applications. He noted there are many similar workloads in government intelligence. Demand is also growing in startup organizations (public and private) doing AI research and development that’s connected to deep learning, such as self-driving cars and drone aircraft. However narrow the market is today, the expectation is for the number of deep learning and related applications to grow significantly.

Availability of the 6500 is scheduled for this summer but pricing hasn’t been set said Mannel.

Pivoting to Storage Technology
It’s not surprising that HPE is ramping up its offerings here – HPC storage demand is expected to outpace HPC compute demand. The Lustre solution being announced is the Apollo 4520; it fits between 4510 (single motherboard) announced about this time last year and the 4530 (three motherboards.) Mannel said the latter is finding heavy use in object storage types of applications as well as in Hadoop environments.

Intel Enterprise Edition Lustre comes with the box. “The 4520 has two motherboards and will allows customer to have a failover capability and to help spread out the IO capability of the box,” he said. Currently GPFS (IBM Spectrum Scale) isn’t supported but is on the technology roadmap, according to Mannel. The new solution will be available April 18 with starting prices around $8500.

It is roughly a year since the HPE-Intel alliance around engineered solutions was formed, said Mannel, and the Apollo/Lustre solution is an early fruit.

“We have a good roadmap with engineering teams engaged. Basically we are creating a product that is a more flexible and open solution for a fat file cluster system for HPC users. So there’s a lot of appliances out there, and we sell them, but there are a class of users that want to be able to get into the platform itself, be able to configure for their particular environment and be able to tweak parameters, etc., and by combining IEEL with Apollo we believe we have an solution for those folks allows scaling in multiple directions (performance and size),” said Mannel.

HPE_Lustre

Purpose-built HPC Solutions
Like all HPC technology suppliers, HPE is betting heavily on HPC’s wider adoption throughout the enterprise. A major goal of its Intel alliance is to identify and deliver engineered solutions targeting “specific verticals and specific customers in those verticals to create solutions that target a particular workload. The first segment is FS market because it’s a very large growing market,” said Mannel.

Take for example, the trader workstation world, he said. Currently it’s a sea of traders facing multiple screens supported by a hodgepodge of equipment. With Moonshot, he contends, “we can take all that video capability that is being delivered by mostly high-end VDI machines or workstations and PCs under desks and pull them into a tight package and distribute very good quality graphics across a networks.”

The other two FS offerings announced include:

  • HPE Trade and Match Server. It’s an optimized Apollo 2000 server with a two-socket motherboard with a single socket populated. HPE says the processor can be over-clocked to achieve high trading performance and that some customers report being able to get 4Ghz. There are a series of processor options according to Mannel.
  • HPE Risk Compliant Archive. It’s composed of iTernity iCAS software verified for archiving standards and Scality RING file and object storage on Apollo 4000 servers.

HPE also released an edition of Vertica for Hadoop-configured Apollo and Proliant platforms. The company will issue reference architectures for optimizing Vertica on SQL. Plans to support Spark are also on the technology roadmap.

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