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This presentation from Andrew Jones at the IDC HPC User Forum discusses how High-Performance Computing (HPC) serves as a strategic asset for industries such as research, aerospace, and finance. It emphasizes the importance of optimizing HPC resources to achieve faster results, better performance, and reduced costs, ultimately differentiating businesses in competitive markets. By leveraging powerful hardware and efficient software processes, organizations can effectively enhance their computational capabilities and drive innovation through Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) support.
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Creating an edge with HPC Andrew JonesIDC HPC User Forum, Imperial College London, 16 Oct 2008
HPC: what & why? • computation is a strategic business activity across most industries • research, aerospace, automotive, logistics, financial, ... • HPC is an accelerator of computation • can create competitive edge • by optimising your use of HPC facilities
An edge? • Look to differentiate • Do something faster/better/cheaper • than your competitors
How to create an edge with HPC? • Get results faster: more powerful HPC facility • Get better results: more powerful HPC service • Reduce costs: more cost-effective HPC service • Optimise business processes surrounding HPC
More powerful HPC? • Faster (more?) hardware • Use dense FLOPS: GPU’s, accelerators, etc
More cost-effective HPC? • Commodity hardware • “Green” hardware & datacentres • Deploy hardware in scale with needs • Use cheap FLOPS: GPU’s, accelerators, etc
Why only look at hardware? • Applications deliver the results • together with the user, the application software • contains the (embedded) expert knowledge • Hardware is just an engine ...
Software can create a better edge • Get results faster: optimise and scale the code • Get better results: scale and enhance the code • Reduce costs: more efficient use of hardware • and also of power, datacentre, etc • Optimise business processes surrounding HPC
HPC: what & why? • HPC is an accelerator of computation • HPC = hardware + software + people • Enable users & business to differentiate • by investing in expertise and hardware
HECToR • Mission: enable capability science • Provide world class supercomputer(s) • Capability usage model • Comparable scale investment in expertise • Computational Science & Engineering (CSE) • Capability support model
Enhance capability science • User requirements capture for HECToR identified the need for strong provision of CSE support to enhance the capability science enabled by the capability supercomputer
What is CSE? • Computational Science & Engineering • i.e. the engineering & science of computation • Parallelisation, scaling & optimisation • Algorithm development & innovation • Functional enhancements & re-factoring • Software engineering for robustness
CSE support service • 120+ person-years • ~60% embedded in user community • secondments to specific research groups for several months • or staff within research group funded by HECToR for several months • staff managed by, and part of, NAG team
Summary • HPC = hardware + software + expertise • Create an edge by optimising all three • HECToR supports better capability science through a strong investment in HPC software expertise with the community
End Expertise in algorithms and software engineering Delivered as HPC services, specialist consulting & libraries