Barriers to Industry HPC Use

or“Blue Collar” HPC as a Solution

Presented by

Stan Ahalt OSC Executive Director

Presented to

HPC Users ConferenceJuly 13, 2004

For more information on OSC, please visit www.osc.edu

Brief Outline

Barriers to Entry Context (Science & Engineering) Solutions Blue Collar HPC

Barriers to Entry

Traditional Technical Expertise Pricing and Support Intellectual Property Security ROI

Non-Traditional Cultural Barriers Lack of Imagination Not forging new tools and utilities Risk Aversion

Panelists’ Barriers to Entry

Dr. John Hallquist

Need standardization of OS and software environment; need for better tools

Poor skill levels of college grads in programming, parallel programming

Porting of serial codes to scalable parallel implementations

Daniel Wolgemuth

Understanding economic benefits of technology investments

Inability to adjust to new ways of doing business

Jeffrey Birnbaum

Total of cost of ownership – incl. system updates, maintenance, administration

Changing the business culture to view computation as an asset

Maximizing use of the resources as a dynamic pool

But there is another way to look at why we don’t currently employ HPCs…

As the previous panelists discussed, if we had a compelling reason to make use of larger HPCs, we would…

So why don’t we?

Context (Science and Engineering):

While there have been significant advances in computer hardware, as well as … sciences and engineering,

resulting in greater expectations, as well as greater challenges

And while HPCs offer many benefits to various applications:

Codes that benefit from the speed-ups due to a modest number of processors (8-32), all the way up to….

Extremely large problems that need (many) thousands of processors.

An example

However….

the HPC software that enables (realizes) the science on the hardware – this software needs dramatic improvement For example, few simulation environments

aggressively take advantage of parallel computing.

Conversion of serial codes requires major effort

So the entire spectrum of HPC applications will reap the benefits derived from improved programming models

At the High End of the Spectrum

Benefits are primarily scientific - solving problems that cannot be otherwise tackled

A special barrier is the inherent difficulty of “large-code” programming

The problem will be exacerbated by dramatic increases in processors (100K processors)

But, national interests mandate heroic programming efforts and significant long-term funding.

One Solution: Refocusing HPC Develop a full-spectrum HPC market. This will:

Greatly improve our national competitiveness Strengthen national security Create well-paid, interesting jobs

These efforts will ultimately impact high-end computing

So, focus our innovations, advances, and education on the entire application spectrum

“Small” jobs today will become the large jobs of tomorrow.

The greater impact will be for the entire computing market (scale up and scale down!)

The Current Market for HPCN

um

ber

of

Use

rs

Amount of Computing Power

Nu

mb

er o

f A

pp

licat

ion

s

# of Dollars

Current Market for HPC

Easy Pickings

Nu

mb

er o

f T

ask

s

, Storage, & CapabilityDoD

8

1 2 4 64

Competitive NecessityBusiness ROIProgrammer Productivity

NSF DoE

Heroes

Ideal Market for HPC

Blue-Collar Computing

IncreasedProductivity Gains

In Industry and Engineering

IncreasedGains in

Scientific Discovery

“Blue-Collar” HPC Applications

The barrier is the lack of parallel programming skills on the part of the domain scientist or engineer Result is that engineers settle for a sub-optimal design

Removing this barrier will: Lead to better products Help our innovators to “Think Faster” actuate the next long-lived productivity expansion

And while the benefits will be primarily economic, the heros (and the rest of the computing community) will also reap the benefits!

Summary: The transition to “blue collar” computing will:

Naturally break down many of the current barriers to entry, and

Provide the nation with a vitally important economic edge – allowing the United States to maintain its economic leadership in the global marketplace

But, it requires a paradigm change in our way of thinking, our way of teaching, and our way of approaching HPC.