The 4-1-1 is an irregular insideHPC feature where we highlight some member of the HPC ecosystem with a quick look at who they are and what they do. If you’d like your company to be considered for a 4-1-1 feature, drop us an email.
eXludus develops software solutions that add resource allocation intelligence to Linux systems that dynamically optimize multi-core server throughput without need for re-writing applications. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Who: eXludus is a software development company that has spent the past 2+ years developing a solution that allows existing applications to make better use of rapidly increasing processor core counts. The founder and lead engineers spent most of their careers in high performance computing — vendor and user side — developing OS schedulers and cluster management tools, parallelizing applications, and running large supercomputer sites. Realizing that: a) multi-core processors and most existing (serial/lightly parallel) applications are not well matched, b) parallelizing applications is costly, and hard, and c) that more cores will place more strain on shared system resources, they have been applying their knowledge to developing an easy-to-deploy solution that allows multi-core processors to be used more effectively, thereby increasing overall system throughput.
What: MCOPt software transparently adds a dynamic application profiler and resource allocation layer to Linux systems. MCOPt increases system throughput by applying queuing theory techniques to ‘best fit’ actual resource needs to cores and memory. With MCOPt, users can safely process more concurrent tasks per system and take full advantage of multi-core power, as MCOPt limits shared-resource contentions and oversubscription problems which can lead to performance degradation. MCOPt is simply installed as a kernel module and requires no application changes. The company will soon be releasing an application profiler database extension to MCOPt that maintains historical runtime information that details actual resource consumption.
Why (you care): MCOPt provides an easily installed mechanism that can provide immediate throughput gains for many applications, and makes it simpler for users to extract more value from multi-core systems. If you have source access and in-house parallelism skills (neither a given), re-writing apps is a costly multi-year effort and, even then, the rate of parallelism will in most cases fall short of the rate of core count increase. An improved resource allocation layer that makes intelligent scheduling decisions to cores and memory based on actual application needs can help get more work completed in less time.
ScaleMP develops server aggregation virtualization solutions with a specific emphasis in high performance computing. Their flagship product is vSMP Foundation. Here is the 4-1-1.
HPC Platform, headquartered in Paris (France), develops HPC and low-latency solutions for Market data processing and complex financial products valuations. Its HPCP appliances leverage the performance of FPGA-based hardware systems with the use of Domain Specific Language (DSL) compilers and optimized core libraries. The HPCP appliances have a very modular and scalable technical architecture that enables them to fit well the targeted applications (for instance market data processing + monitoring + valuation/CEP functionalities + risk analysis).
PSSC Labs (Professional Service, Super Computers) delivers high performance computing clusters, workstations, servers and storage systems. PSSC Labs solutions aim to allow customers to focus on their work and not managing their computers. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Terascala develops high throughput, high capacity storage solutions for performance-based computing. Its RTS 1000 Lustre-based storage appliance leverages the performance and robustness of the Lustre file system while masking some of Lustre’s complexity and associated costs. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Cluster Resources develops workload and resource management software including the Moab Cluster Suite, Moab Grid Suite, and Maui Scheduler. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Interactive Supercomputing Corporation develops Star-P, a software platform that is delivering interactive parallel computing power to the desktop. Here’s the 4-1-1.
NICE has a big presence in the European HPC market, particularly on the industrial side. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Super Micro Computer, Inc. is a motherboard manufacturer that’s expanded into systems and support infrastructure for servers. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Digipede Technologies is one of the companies making supercomputing on Windows a reality for enterprise customers with big requirements but without all the specialize knowledge and resources HPC has historically demanded. Here’s the 4-1-1.
Networking startup Woven Systems has been getting increasing attention over the past several months in our community. HPCwire included them in their half-year 
