High Performance Computing: past, present and future - Storage Networking

Cluster computing has forever altered the landscape of High Performance Computing (HPC). From humble beginnings as part of a NASA project in the early 1990s, Beowulf clusters have now secured their place as the predominant high-performance computing architecture. Advances in scalable storage architectures promise further changes that will continue to drive supercomputing into more commercial IT organizations.

High Performance Computing: A Landscape in Transition

Only a few years ago, the typical supercomputer was built using custom silicon, proprietary high performance interconnects and specialized storage subsystems. Companies such as IBM, Amdahl, Cray and Fujitsu developed complex systems that took years to bring to market and cost millions to tens of millions of dollars. Such systems were available only to national and international government-funded research centers.

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Compare that with the current trend in high performance computing: cluster computers based on personal computer architectures, commodity microprocessors, Gigabit Ethernet and standard networked storage architectures. These systems represent the growing wave of commodity supercomputers. They are developed and sold by some of the traditional high-performance computing vendors, such as IBM, high volume PC manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, and a new breed of cluster computing vendors that includes LinuxNetworks, Rackable Systems and RackSaver. These systems can be acquired for as little as a hundred thousand dollars, making them available to a wide range of government, industry and academic institutions.

Cluster Computing: To Infinity and Beyond

The growth of cluster computing has been fueled by a number of key technology developments in recent years. First is the rapid advancement of CPU technology, in accordance with Moore's Law. Proprietary vector processors have given way, first to RISC-based processors employed in HPC systems of the 1980s and early 1990s, and more recently to commodity Intel processors whose integer and floating-point performance improvements have outpaced more specialized processors. Second is the commoditization of high performance networking technology, which provides the interconnection network, required for cluster computers to communicate with one another. Last is the maturation of the software infrastructure required to orchestrate the activities of hundreds or thousands of cluster computers, making the task of effectively harnessing these hardware advancements accessible to a larger group of programmers.

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