Why HPC Clusters Require Ultra-Low Latency Network Monitoring

High performance computing (HPC) requires an extremely high-powered network with ultra-low latency to move large files between HPC nodes quickly. IT and network operations (NetOps) teams in industries such as financial service, oil and gas, animation/3D rendering and pharmaceutical research need to monitor their networks in exacting detail to ensure they can support HPC workloads. But monitoring latency and other metrics at HPC-class performance levels creates a new set of challenges, including monitoring packets at 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds, measuring latency at millisecond and nanosecond intervals, and detecting miniscule “microbursts” of traffic before they cause performance issues.

What’s Needed for High-Fidelity, Low-Latency HPC Network Monitoring at 100Gbps

Enterprise migration to 100Gbps network speeds continues to accelerate, with high-performance computing (HPC) data centers leading the charge. According to data from Crehan Research, 100 and 25 Gbps Ethernet speeds rose 40 percent year-over-year in 2020, with more growth expected over the next several years. HPC use cases, like financial trading, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, 3D rendering and modeling, meteorology, and other types of research benefit significantly from the increased speed of 100Gbps, but are also highly sensitive to issues like jitter and latency.