applications


➤ At one level, getting access to a more powerful computing isn’t a difficult skills barrier to solve – simply let your favourite vendor know you want to spend more money on a bigger system and I’m sure they will be delighted to pop in for a chat about the options. However, you may wish to be more certain that you are getting the best value for money and the right capability for your organisation. First, you will need to become a regular


reader of the various HPC media (such as this publication) and maybe some HPC bloggers. Social media, especially twitter, can help point to content – for instance, I am active as @hpcnotes and there is the prolific but anonymous @HPC_Guru. If the investment will be significant, then reading is probably not enough. You will also want attend several HPC conferences to research the technology choices and network with peers to learn what works and what doesn’t. Te two main HPC conferences are ‘SC’, held annually in November in the USA and ‘ISC’, held each year in June in Germany. Tere are many more, including some sector specific HPC workshops – one list of such events can be found at www.hpcnotes.com/p/hpc- events.html. If this sounds like a commitment of


hard work, time, travel and money – that’s because it is. It can also be fun. But, if you don’t like the sound of that, or your organisation can’t spare the resource to do it properly, then there are a couple of options: either hire an impartial (not vendor aligned) HPC consultant to help; or subscribe to services such as NAG’s HPC Technology Intelligence Service (www.nag. com/hpc-technology-intelligence) or analyst publications (such Intersect360 or IDC, etc.) that can do the hard work for you. How much effort to put into this depends


on how much you plan to invest in a HPC system, and how much HPC experience you have in-house. Te cost of attending conferences or hiring consultants for a $50k HPC investment will probably be out-of- proportion to the solution optimisation gained or risk mitigated. If you can justify a $1m HPC investment, then proper research is a must and the experience of an impartial HPC consultant will be money well-spent. Once the investment gets beyond a few million dollars, then it would be a case of needing a clear justification if you weren’t involving experienced HPC consultants plus attending HPC events yourself. Where can you find these magic HPC


consultants? Tere a few – very few – firms that offer genuinely impartial HPC


32 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD


experience – such as NAG, Red Oak Consulting, and similar. Some of the major consulting firms might be able to help, but many don’t have true HPC experience or skills. Some academic supercomputer centres will be happy to help. Another excellent source of such consultants is semi- retired HPC professionals, especially former HPC centre directors. Tat should act as a workable guide to the


hardware side of solving your application performance dreams. Te real challenge for application performance – and the skills barrier – is the soſtware side. If you don’t have access to your application source code – for instance, if you are using


Tere are several tools to help this task –


for instance, Allinea provides tools to analyse application performance, Ellexus provides tools to understand I/O performance, and most HPC vendors offer some level of performance analysis tools on their systems. Analysing your application’s performance limitations and identifying possible solutions is also available as a service, free of charge to EU-based organisations, via the EC-funded POP project at www.pop-coe.eu. If you need outside help to deliver your


THERE ARE TWO SKILLS ISSUES TO ADDRESS – GETTING THE RIGHT HARDWARE AND MAKING THE SOFTWARE SMARTER


HOW MUCH EFFORT TO PUT INTO THIS DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH YOU PLAN TO INVEST IN A HPC SYSTEM, AND HOW MUCH HPC EXPERIENCE YOU HAVE IN-HOUSE


proprietary soſtware – then this skills barrier is purely about your business negotiations with your ISV to get them to adapt the performance to the new hardware, improve scalability, or whatever. If you do have access to your application


source code, then securing performance improvements is within grasp. Tere are many providers of training in soſtware performance tuning, scaling, and related skills. A good place to look is the academic supercomputer centres, although there are some commercial providers too. Your HPC system vendor might be able to make a recommendation.


application performance improvements, then contrary to the hype, there are many choices. Specialist providers service both private and public sector clients, ranging from broad services such as NAG’s Soſtware Modernization Service to focused offerings such as StreamComputing’s OpenCL consulting for GPUs. Several academic HPC centres will provide soſtware scaling and optimisation services, although oſten ideally as part of an overall research collaboration. And again, there are individuals and small collectives of individuals who can be an excellent choice for such work, like www. sourceryinstitute.org. So why is there a hype around a shortage


of skills? It is partly true – there are fewer experienced HPC professionals and soſtware performance engineers than there is demand for, but there are also more sources of such skills than are sometimes acknowledged. One part of this is that HPC/soſtware performance skills are a skilled niche and so command higher fees than generic IT services. Unfortunately, ‘shortage of staff/ candidates’ oſten actually just means ‘I’m not willing to pay the going rate for HPC skills’, usually making a false comparison of costs against commodity IT staff. Recruiting in-house staff remains the best and cheapest long term solution. However, for short-term needs, or ‘burst capacity’ of such skills, or specialist skillsets, then contracting an HPC/application performance consultant or service is a very practical and cost-effective solution. In summary, the dream of your


application running faster or solving bigger problems is very achievable. Te much quoted and feared skills barrier need not be a show-stopper. Tere are plenty of training or self-learning opportunities, and there are proven providers of HPC experience or application performance engineers. Keep dreaming – but now you know how to make those dreams reality, and to become another success story of application performance improvements delivering significant business innovation. l


@scwmagazine l www.scientific-computing.com


Matushchak Anton/Shutterstock.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36