HPC in the Cloud: Delivering HPC to the New Main Street

Dedicated to Covering Enterprise & Scientific Large Scale Cloud Computing

HPC in the Cloud >> Blogs

Blog: Behind the Cloud

July 20, 2010

Delivering HPC to the New Main Street

Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Center was in the news last week when it announced its partnership with GIS software firm ESRI. At the end of the announcement, which will be discussed in an upcoming feature, was a statement about how RMSC has the goal of bringing HPC to Main Street, which is a goal at a handful of other centers as well but is enjoying particular success in Montana. That issue alone seemed worthy of tackling independently of the news about GIS in the cloud since it marks one of the greatest possibilities for scientific computing we’ve seen in at least a decade--the possibility of a supercomputer for everyone. Imagine that.

The cloud is making it possible to deliver supercomputing resources on-demand and many feel that this is an often overlooked element in any plan to jumpstart economic recovery. While the costs are still not low over the course of time with sustained use if one looks to most public cloud providers, there is an avoidance of the capital expenditure at the startup—a key element of value for many. It is this supercomputing on-demand accessibility that is making Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers and others like it organizations to watch, both on a technological level and an economic one.

Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Center is not the only center offering its high-performance compute power to power local business and governments. This is a growing trend, although there are different ways this is delivered that might not fit into what some think of as a cloud—it’s more like rentable HPC. Still, the sharing of large resources is an important topic and is a growing trend among other centers, especially as many have received funds to work to open their infrastructure to the outside world.

Although I reached out to Execute Director of Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers, Earl Dodd, to talk about GIS in the cloud at RMSC for the coming feature story, I couldn’t help but ask some of the larger questions that revolve around the mission at Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Center, especially those that are related to the concept of delivering to HPC to users that either didn’t know they needed HPC or didn’t think they could get started as genuine competitors due to a lack of investment in hardware.

I asked Dodd to describe RMSC’s concept of “HPC for the New Main Street” and prompted him to offer some level of detail about who benefits the most and who some of the early adopters of the concept in practice were. The following was Dodd’s detailed response:

Without delving into the realm of politics and the efficacy of the U.S. Government bailouts for banks, AIG, ―Detroit and other large entities, the vast majority of America—the small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contributing roughly between 65%-75% of the tax base and leading the innovation curve—was missed. RMSC calls these SMEs and their employees and contractors the ―New Main Street.

RMSC’s unique business model, as a public-private partnership for economic development using the HPC Cloud, is laser-focused on this market because it will generate local jobs, high-technology jobs and real growth by creating a competitive and sustainable economy. Currently, the majority of SMEs do not use HPC solutions, nor make extensive use of the Cloud Computing business model. RMSC seeks to change non-consumption into HPC Cloud consumption.

Early adopters include small Montana business, like GCS Research, TerraEchos, Fort Peck Land Owners Association, and soon Montana government agencies like the Montana Natural Heritage Program and Departments of Agriculture, Livestock and Emergency Services, that have data and analytic problems that cannot be solved without supercomputing performance yet unable to afford an outright purchase of such infrastructure. These problems range from wildfire simulation supporting emergency management, security of critical assets and borders, terrestrial and geologic carbon sequestration management and the control of noxious and invasive plant and animal species.

Although the context of our conversation was initially about GIS in the cloud and its spurring of economic activity in addition to advancing the field in general, he did provide a few other points about the power of the HPC cloud for the New Main Street. In his words, a “true HPC cloud” will address the following issues, in order of priority ranked according to the barriers encountered:

• Service Level (begin where the consumer is today and make it simple)
• Support (demystify HPC and hand-hold the consumer through the process)
• Price (make HPC affordable and payable by the click-bit-byte-pixel)
• Access (make HPC accessible and simple to use)
• Security and Assurance (make the new paradigm safe with defined responsibilities)
• Performance (―unleash the beast)

On another economic note, Dodd also noted:

As stated by the Council on Competitiveness, the nation as a whole must strengthen its competitiveness by increasing its ability to innovate. RMSC has taken to task this call to action and sees our relationship with ESRI (advancing GIS, 3D remote visualization, analytics and simulation/modeling) necessary to do the following.

• Have Supercomputing be absolutely essential to business survival
• Democratize Supercomputing and remove it as a computing niche
• Exploit Supercomputing for greater SME competitiveness
• Deliver a Supercomputing business model template to replicate and expand

This is a rousing call to arms, particularly during times of economic crisis. If we begin to see harnessing the power of supercomputing might for those who had previously been denied access, it is reasonable to think that there will be a significant boost to the nation’s economy and the development of scientific inquiry via access to previously off-limits compute horsepower.

Posted by Nicole Hemsoth - July 20 @ 5:00PM, Eastern Daylight Time

(Digg, Technorati, more)

Discussion

There are 0 discussion items posted.

Nicole Hemsoth

Nicole Hemsoth is the managing editor of HPC in the Cloud and will discuss a range of overarching issues related to HPC-specific cloud topics in posts, which will appear several times per week in Behind the Cloud.

More Nicole Hemsoth

Feature Articles

On Par for 2 Billion: 3PAR Discusses Cloud Strategy

Storage vendor 3PAR has been at the heart of an intense bidding war between HP and Dell due to its unique refinements and developments in virtualized storage platform concepts. Thin provisioning and a focus on the needs of large-scale enterprises and cloud providers have catapulted the company into the public eye but as 3PAR's Craig Nunes discusses with HPC in the Cloud, the cloud strategy has been consistent since 1999--even if the world is just taking notice now.
Read More...

Busting the "Cloud in a Box" Myth

The concept of private clouds is gaining traction and due to the buzz, more enterprises are taking a much closer look at the possibility—if they haven’t taken steps to virtualize some or all of their infrastructure already. For those who have not yet made the transition, a lack of understanding of the complex process behind private cloud implementation is at the core of hesitancy, therefore vendors are looking for ways to convince users to fear not, the private cloud is not only within reach—but simple to step into.
Read More...

Achieving Ultra High Performance in the Cloud

Companies in competitive domains, such as financial services, create large data repositories containing significant amounts of data collected from daily operations. Using supercomputers to analyze these massive datasets might yield the highest level of performance, but this is prohibitively expensive. Using proprietary, custom-built HPC atop cloud environments is also a viable option--although one that does come with a series of drawbacks that must be mitigated to achieve critical performance levels.
Read More...

Read more HPC in the Cloud features...

Around the Web

Application Flexibility and the New Enterprise Architecture

Aug 31 | Application delivery strategies must be shaped with flexibility in mind as the number of platforms delivering core applications is bound to change with time. Since a greater number of devices and platforms are entering the infrastructure mix, those who do not adapt quickly face being locked into strategies that do not mesh well with new developments. Read more...

A Maturation Stage for Storage Virtualization

Aug 27 | Storage virtualization has been gaining momentum as it moves from concept to practice but some suggest the offerings in this realm have not matured sufficiently and require a longer maturation process before wider adoption occurs. Read more...

HP Seeks to Boost Cloud Service Automation Capability

Aug 27 | Although it was lost in the chaos of the 3PAR bidding war between, HP announced news that it acquired cloud service automation firm Stratavia to bolster its cloud management offering and further its strategy in the arena. Read more...

NASA CIO Weighs in on Nebula, Public Clouds

Aug 26 | In an interview from the NASA IT Summit last week, the agency's CIO, Linda Cureton weighs in on developments with Nebula platform and the adoption of the open source code by other agencies looking to the cloud. Read more...

Facing the Realities of Private Cloud Building

Aug 24 | While private clouds are getting far more attention than they received at the beginning of the cloud buzz boom, the realities of the complexities of actual building them--not to mention the financial and time investments--are often overlooked. Read more...

Read more headlines...

Featured Whitepapers

Increase IT Performance from the Enterprise to the Cloud with WAN Optimization

Aug 30 | | Enterprises face a paradox today: while workers become increasingly distributed, IT infrastructure is rapidly consolidating. Virtualization has made it possible to create consolidated, elastic pools.

Grid Computing in the Cloud White Paper

May 14 | | Empower business users, scientists and researchers with their own grid computing infrastructure in the cloud.

View the White Paper Library

Multimedia

Webcast: Storm Clouds - Security Issues in the Cloud and How to Address Them

This Webinar will highlight the four critical areas of concern when securing cloud infrastructure services and managed enterprise applications.

Webcast: Confronting HPC Cloud Computing Security Concerns

Escalating energy and operational costs of building and maintaining data centers are forcing enterprises to adopt cloud computing models. But are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions like IBM's Computing on Demand (CoD) really cost effective? Join the discussion as industry experts discuss how you can exploit cloud computing for maximum ROI.