Bjoern Olausson


HPC 2015-16 | Integrators


Dr Ernst Haunschmid, system administrator at the Technical University of Vienna, checks the installation of the


ClusterVision immersively cooled cluster


allowing them to draw up their own detailed specifications and thus buy direct from the manufacturers. But smaller organisations cannot hope to command such expertise. Even though a university may have profound technical knowledge, it may be deep but not broad enough to cover all the factors and components that have to be brought together – that have to be ‘integrated’ – to make a modern cluster work. It is for these customers that the specialist integrators offer the greatest benefit. An oil exploration company or a wind-turbine manufacturer just wants to get on with the geophysics or the turbulence calculations and does not want to have to worry about project managing the


installation of the high-performance cluster that will do those calculations.


Integrators provide solutions and service According to Oliver Tennert of Transtec: ‘We see ourselves as a solution provider, not a manufacturer’. It is this distinction that lies at the heart of what the integrator can offer. Tennert pointed out that: ‘Lenovo can sell you only Lenovo, whereas we partner with lots of companies and therefore can select what fits best for a particular solution.’ Christopher Huggins, ClusterVision’s


commercial director, also stressed the flexibility of the offering from an integrator:


‘Tier 1s have specific configurations they like to offer to the market, whereas the customer may want more memory, or GPUs, or cooling that the Tier 1 may not offer. We can offer something extra.’ Transtec had tried to position itself as a


manufacturer in HPC, but it moved away from that towards being a solutions-oriented company, according to Tennert, so that, while it sells hardware: ‘Hardware is not our differentiator. Our knowledge, our ability to choose optimal components, and our service, are key,’ he continued. ‘Customer care doesn’t start with selling and stop with delivery.’ In Huggins’ view, one reason to work with an integrator is that ‘You get personalised


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