high-performance computing
reduce power and energy consumption (not the same thing) and increase performance- per-dollar of HPC systems. Te same pressures mean many-core processors (tens to hundreds of cores) will become hard to avoid in the near future. Nvidia deserves much of the credit
for driving many-core processing into the mainstream of HPC. Its aggressive marketing of a capable many-core processor product in Tesla, critically backed by investment in Cuda as a means to access the potential of GPUs, has had an undeniable effect on the HPC landscape in recent years. It is now hard to attend any HPC or computational science conference without falling over presentations describing applications of GPU computing. Of course, there is still plenty of debate in the corridors about how many people are using large
MANY-CORE
PROCESSORS (TENS TO HUNDREDS OF CORES) WILL BECOME HARD TO AVOID IN THE NEAR FUTURE
GPU clusters as their primary workhorse for real production workloads. But that misses the point: whether just for special case use, or for experimental work, people are evidently using GPUs, so system buyers and application developers must consider this as a mainstream processor option. Intel has its own many-core product,
Intel Xeon processors with a few cores each) strung together with commodity interconnects. Tere have been several perturbations – for example, enhanced capabilities using custom interconnects in Cray XC or SGI UltraViolet systems. But the dominant architecture had become a safe choice for the buyer and application developer. Change has been coming, though.
Multicore processors have ridden into near-ubiquity on the back of pressures to
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Xeon Phi, with the much awaited Knights Landing generation due in 2016. ‘KNL’, as it is colloquially known, promises performance comparable to GPUs (with suitable tuning effort). Te use of OpenMP rather than Cuda means developers have a shot at better code compatibility with Xeon. Tus KNL is likely to attract the attention of both system buyers and application developers as a serious option, and to make significant inroads into market share of HPC systems in 2016 and beyond. Alongside Xeon, GPUs, and KNL, a fistful
of other processor options are pressing for ‘mind share’, either now or in the near future. IBM’s Power architecture and ARM- based processors, in particular, both have ambitious plans and credible technology roadmaps to earn a much greater share of the HPC market. It is highly unlikely that Xeon’s dominance in HPC will be seriously reduced in the next few years. But, with an increasing choice of
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capable processors available this year, so that the set of roadmaps extends beyond even those of IBM and ARM, each supercomputer deployment faces a more complex decision than in recent years. Tat, in turn, makes for a more diverse and uncertain range of platforms that application developers should target.
Seeing the obvious Speaking of diversity, what about people? Attend any HPC conference or similar event and you’ll see the participants showing a distinct dominant trait. Specifically, they are mostly male. Oddly, it seems not to have been important enough for people to highlight, or act on, until recently. Tankfully, due to the efforts of a
handful of strong individuals, and the increased willingness of many more to acknowledge the problem, the lack of diversity in HPC people has pushed its way into the mainstream conversation of the HPC community. I look forward to seeing measurable improvements in gender diversity during 2016. It will be a long time before the gender split at HPC workplaces and events nears parity, but every step towards that is welcome. When discussing diversity (or lack of)
it is also important to look beyond the glaringly obvious gender split and consider other diversity failures – for example, ethnicity, social background, and age. With regard to age, the proper value placed on experience could be combined with the willingness found in early/mid career people to challenge ‘the way things have always been done’, opening the door to innovation. Indeed, that is a key benefit of improving diversity in general – enabling better results, by considering options beyond the subconscious bias of a less diverse group. A related longstanding issue that has
now fizzed to the surface is that of research soſtware engineers. Te world of HPC is intricately linked with the world of research. One characteristic of research is the appearance of a two class system comprising researchers at the top and support staff (including technicians, IT staff, managers and administration) at the bottom. Tere are many issues with this, but the one that concerns us here is research soſtware. Soſtware is core to most modern research
and, of course, it is essential to all research using HPC. Developing and enhancing soſtware for effective performance on HPC platforms is an advanced skill, best performed by people who possess the rare ability to hover partly in the research
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