This sponsored post from Amazon Web Services’ Bala Thekkedath explores how the cloud HPC market is growing and accelerating HPC innovation.
Running HPC in the cloud enables organizations to select and deploy an optimal set of services for their unique applications, and to pay only for what they use. (Photo: Pixabay)
Market updates provided by prominent High Performance Computing (HPC) analysts at recent industry events indicate that the cloud HPC market is growing at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the HPC segments. The biggest reason for that impressive growth transcends the usual arguments made for the benefits of the cloud – the ease and elasticity of access to capacity on demand, the low upfront cost, and the access to latest technologies. It is the freedom of imagination that moving HPC to the cloud unleashes. The idea of running HPC in the cloud is driving a fundamental shift in the way enterprises and research institutions are approaching their HPC applications. One of our customers put it perfectly when they remarked that while speed (enabled by access to large capacity) is important, equally, or perhaps more important is the additional intellectual curiosity it enabled for their researchers.
Running HPC in the cloud enables organizations to select and deploy an optimal set of services for their unique applications, and to pay only for what they use.
With instant access to virtually unlimited capacity of a wide range of compute, storage, and networking options, HPC engineers, researchers and analysts are no longer constrained by infrastructure as they ponder on the best approach to solve a problem. They do not need to limit their ideas to the ones that can be tried out on their existing infrastructure without impacting other production workloads. They no longer need to tweak or update their applications to run on the CPUs or GPUs that they procured years ago. Running HPC workloads on the cloud enables a new way for globally distributed teams to collaborate securely. With globally-accessible shared data, engineers and researchers can work together or in parallel to get results faster. Using the cloud as a collaboration platform also makes it easier to ensure compliance with ever-changing industry regulations.
Running HPC in the cloud enables organizations to select and deploy an optimal set of services for their unique applications, and to pay only for what they use. Individuals and teams can rapidly scale up or scale down resources as needed, commissioning or decommissioning HPC clusters in minutes, instead of days or weeks. With HPC in the cloud, computational scientists and commercial HPC users can gain rapid access to resources they need without a burdensome procurement process.
The AWS HPC Solution combines the latest compute, networking, storage, security, cloud orchestration, and visualization technologies with a vibrant partner and ISV community to offer a highly customizable computing platform for organizations planning to leverage the cloud for a broad range of compute intensive workloads. These workloads span the traditional HPC applications like genomics, life sciences research, financial risk analysis, computer aided design, and seismic imaging, to the emerging applications like machine learning, deep learning, and autonomous driving. AWS HPC solutions remove the traditional challenges associated with on-premises clusters: fixed infrastructure capacity, technology obsolescence, and high capital expenditures. AWS gives you access to virtually unlimited HPC capacity, built from the latest technologies. You can quickly migrate to newer, more powerful compute instances as soon as they are made available on AWS. This removes the risk of on-premises CPU clusters becoming obsolete or poorly utilized as needs change over time.
HPC has always been fundamental to the biggest achievements in science and engineering. Now imagine how the power of the cloud can accelerate those efforts and enable life changing discoveries.
Bala Thekkedath is the HPC Marketing Solutions Lead at AWS.
