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What You Can Learn From HPC
The flurry of high-performance computing news has relevance for data center managers
June 11, 2008
2 Min Read
Chances are, if you work in an ordinary, run-of-the-mill data center, or even the storage arm of a large enterprise installation, you're not going to need 1 petaflop of sustained performance, like the Roadrunner system IBM has supplied to the U.S. Department of Energy.
You probably also won't require a 1.1-Pbyte acceleration appliance for your filing systems, as NetApp announced today.
And chances are you won't be looking at 40-Gbit/s InfiniBand connectivity anytime soon, even though Mellanox unveiled the building blocks yesterday.
Even if you don't need any of this stuff, it's fun to watch someone who does. After all, there are lessons in high-performance computing for ordinary environments. Here are just a few of the issues faced by HPC that apply universally:
Scaleability. Data is growing for everyone, so even if you don't require thousands of processors, it's useful to know how others are scaling storage capacity while improving performance and reducing latency in other ways.
Connectivity. InfiniBand promoters are claiming the world of data center connectivity belongs to them. We'll see. But 10-Gbit/s Ethernet is also on the way, and HPC environments are where the two will coalesce -- along with FCOE, of course.
Automation. When it comes to products that streamline workflow or model IT costs, no one's interested in small companies. It's the largest financial firms who'll be proving out the claims of vendors like Apptio, HP, and others of that ilk.
Clearly, there's value in seeing something work on a grand scale. Products and services that can work for big banks are likely to work for SMBs, eventually. Of course, there's an art to remodeling enterprise wares for the small shop, instead of simply selling dumbed-down or half-functional products. But that's another story.
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Apptio
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD)
IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM)
Mellanox Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: MLNX)
NetApp Inc.
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