Read Time 10 mins | Written by: John Kim | Ryo Hang
High Performance Computing (HPC)
HPC refers to the practice of aggregating computing power in a way that delivers much higher performance than one could get out of a typical computer or workstation. HPC is used to solve very complex problems and perform research activities through computer modeling, simulation, and analysis. Common industries that rely on HPC for advanced computations and data processing are healthcare, energy, finance, and engineering. HPC allows scientist, researchers, and engineers to innovate with unprecedented speed and accuracy; it is a crucial tool in today’s data-driven world.
However, with great power comes great responsibility. An HPC environment is highly complex and demanding, which leads to several key challenges in areas such as scalability, performance, storage, cost-efficiency, ease of management, and security. Deploying, utilizing, and managing a HPC environment can be far too overwhelming for any given organization.
In this excerpt, we will take a look at how AWS Scale-Out Compute Architecture (SOCA) solution attempts to solve some of these challenges in the HPC realm.
AWS Scale-Out Compute Architecture (SOCA)
AWS SOCA is a cloud-based solution that immensely simplifies the process of deploying and managing HPC workloads. It provides a fully functional HPC, customer-ready environment that can be deployed quickly. Everything in the diagram above can be easily deployed simultaneously in your environment through AWS SOCA (find a tutorial on deployment here). It features a job scheduler, shared storage, and pre-configured user/admin UI portals. With SOCA, users can dynamically scale necessary resources based on workload and demand, optimize performance, manage storage solutions, and take advantage of AWS’s robust security. The convenience, efficiency, and speed of SOCA allow organizations to more easily solve complex problems, analyze massive amounts of data, and rapidly accelerate the pace of productivity.
The chart below shows how AWS SOCA is able to address the overarching challenges of using HPC.
| Topic | HPC Challenge | SOCA Solution | AWS Feature/Service |
| Scalability | As with many on-prem environments, traditional HPC infrastructure has difficulty scaling due to both constraints in hardware/physical space. | Allows for flexible, unlimited, auto-provisioned scaling in the cloud based on the size and demand of workloads. Ensures computational power is available when needed and scales back down when not in use. | |
| Performance | Achieving optimal performance in an HPC environment can be difficult due to workload complexities and the need for highly powerful resources. | Enhances performance by optimizing resource allocation, enabling parallel computing, and providing access to leverage industry-leading processors/technologies offered by AWS. | |
| Storage | Managing tremendous amounts of data in various formats is a common challenge in HPC. | Provides a range of storage solutions to meet different data requirements; this includes high-speed SSDs for data-intensive apps as well as cost-effective HDDs for long-term storage. (Learn more about how to optimize your storage solutions in AWS SOCA here) | |
| Cost-Efficiency | As with many on-prem environments, traditional HPC infrastructures require very significant upfront capital expenses in addition to continual maintenance costs. | Follows a pay-as-you-go model that allows organizations to pay only for the resources they use, therefore enabling significant reductions in the cost of an HPC project. | |
| Ease of Management | Managing a HPC environment can be intensely complex due tot he need to handle multiple tasks such as resource provisioning, job scheduling, system maintenance, performance monitoring, and storage allocation. | Simplifies HPC management with automated infrastructure provisioning and job scheduling. SOCA also includes a pre-configured user-friendly web-interface and user-friendly metrics analytics capabilities. | |
| Security | Large and diverse data volumes, complex infrastructures, resource sharing, data migrations, and compliance requirements can make security in HPC environments a challenging behemoth. | Helps manage access to AWS services/resources. AWS provides a secure, private network and a means to create/manage secure keys for data encryption. Other features include DDoS protection and systems security monitoring. |
Summary
High-Performance Computing (HPC) is an essential tool in today’s data-driven world, powering innovation and research in key industries across the globe. Yet, HPC systems are so intensely complicated and often face major challenges even amongst the most capable, expert practitioners.
AWS offers a complete and robust solution to these challenges with its Scale-Out Compute Architecture. The cloud-based HPC environment can be quickly deployed by anyone and provides an extensive set of features that are essential to HPC operational excellence (auto-scaling, job scheduler, shared storage, interfaces). Not only is AWS SOCA a comprehensive and scalable solution, but it is also cost-effective and relatively hands-off.
If you are going to navigate the complex world of deploying and managing HPC workloads, AWS SOCA can be an incredibly useful solution to make that process a whole lot easier. We will talk about how how to optimize your storage with AWS SOCA in our next blog.
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