HPC 2013-14 | HPC strategies Te fourth dimension, HPC Usage


Expansion, is the one dedicated to the development and democratisation of HPC usage. Here we leave the purely technical realm to look at equally important actions, to do with the economy and education/training, among other things. Tese actions will require coordinated relationships with other players, with a view to developing the overall ecosystem mentioned earlier. First and foremost, it will be about


facilitating access to various levels of computing systems, promoting their use and optimising the costs of purchasing and ownership. In parallel, the SRA recommends stimulating the development of a services sector (porting, optimisation) which would be particularly useful for ISVs and industrial users, as well as supporting SMEs working on HPC technologies. Finally, it seems essential for all those


involved to contribute to HPC training and education, and training programmes focused on HPC usage are seen as equally important as those focused on HPC technology.


A detailed plan for shared funding In the production of the SRA, it seemed relevant to break down the technical aspects of the first three dimensions into six distinct sections, as shown in Figure 2. Te sections are HPC system components and architectures; system and management soſtware; programming environment; energy and resilience; balancing performance between computation, communications, storage; and big data and HPC usage models.


HPC system architecture


Energy and power


Memory and storage


Interconnects


Concurrency and locality


Resilience


Exascale system


architecture


System software and management


Operating system (OS)


Interconnect management (IC)


Cluster


management software (CM)


Resource management and job


scheduling


Programming environment


Parallel


programming APis and languages


Runtime supports/ systems


Debugging and correctness (DC)


High-perfor- mance libraries/ components (LIB)


Performance tools (PT)


Programming environment


Including: support for extreme parallelism


HPC system architecture


System software and management


Usability


Affordability HPC services


Including: ISV support, end-user support


SME focus


Education and training


HPC usage expansion


Extreme scale requirements


Improve system and environment characteristics


Including:energy efficiency, system resilience


Balance compute subsystem, I/O and storage performance


Figure 2: the multidimensional development of HPC


HPC usage models Including: big data, HPC in clouds


Based on this categorisation, each section is


subject to a more acurate analysis and is further broken down into sub-themes and research priorities with different milestones (Figure 3). A total of 140 milestones are proposed, as well as an overall plan linking them together, with two major phases: acquisition of the relevant technology capabilities in the various areas, with associated prototype demonstrators (2014-2017); and consolidation, extension, and exascale integration (2018-2020). Tis programme would be of little


use, however, without a concrete – and realistic – estimation of its costs. Excluding the prototypes, this will be around €150 million a year for seven years. Te European Commission will be approached to fund at


Energy and resiliency


Cooling and energy reuse


Energy-efficiency design of computer systems


System software and OS


optimisation


Energy-efficient algorithms


Resilience and RAS


Balance compute, I/O and storage performance


I/O interfaces


Storage Hierarchy


Storage services


I/O system simulation


Interconnects and networks


Big data and HPC usage models


HPC as an instrument


HPC for big data


workloads


Industrial use of HPC as a commodity


The use of HPC in cloud environments


Very large volume


Distributing,


streaming data and noisy data


New HPC workloads


Figure 3: the different objectives of the roadmap 34


least half of this, if possible with a subsidy of more than 50 per cent, most notably for the SMEs involved. Te remaining funding will come from industry and research players who will underwrite associated projects and will be retained to carry them out. At the time of going to press, the


implementation of the programme has not been fully finalised. ETP4HPC’s message is that


“Undoubtedly, Europe has the resources in keeping with its ambitions. Now it has to work out how to mobilise them”


if the European Commission offers support at the level that is being proposed, the industry players will be able to commit to the proposed R&D programme, with performance indicators and monitoring mechanisms still to be defined along with the mechanisms for implementing the whole structure. In the face of likely developments on the other side of the Atlantic and the growing power of China, this is no small challenge. Undoubtedly, Europe has the resources in keeping with its ambitions. Now it has to work out how to mobilise them. l


1


European Technology Platform: http://cordis.europa.eu/technology-platforms/


2www.etp4hpc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Joint-ETP-Vision-FV.pdf 3


www.etp4hpc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/ETP4HPC_book_ singlePage.pdf


Jean-François Lavignon, from Bull, is chair of ETP4HPC. Jean-Philippe Nominé, from CEA, is part of the ETP4HPC office


New HPC deployments


HPC stack elements


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