Performance boost in HPC clustering from Linux

No doubt, Scali clearly aims to be an even greater US market player by promoting its own expertise in powerful high-performance Linux-based clustering solutions. The Linux clustering market, after all, is undergoing rapid growth as increasingly organizations recognize the exceptional price-performance advantage of Linux clusters.

In turn, Scali has aggressively worked on partnerships with technology leaders such as IBM. Global customers relying on the IBM-Scali Linux-based HPC clustering solutions include the Max-Planck Institute for Flow Research in Göttingen; Queens University in Belfast, and the Jaguar Formula 1 team in the UK.

Scali also made the recent move of extending its MPI Connect software to IBM's POWER processors. We turn to Scali's US Senior VP and General Manager, Americas, James Biggs, to learn why.

IBM POWER servers

In November last year, Scali announced the extension of its Scali MPI Connect software to IBM's POWER processor-based servers. Already compatible with IBM's Intel and AMD processor-based cluster nodes, the POWER processor-based server compatibility was extended to OpenPower, BladeCenter, and the pSeries Linux based servers.

MPI Connect is message-passing interface (MPI) software. Scali has consistently demonstrated outstanding performance with low message latency and high bandwidth for Linux clusters. One benefit in this technology is that algorithms optimized for message pass through a direct data transport mechanism to eliminate overhead and reduce latency.

The MPI implementation is fully compliant with the MPI 1.2 specification from the Message Passing Interface Forum, ensuring application compatibility. It is designed to support scalable systems, focused on sustained performance and failover capabilities.

In addition, users are able to achieve low latency and high bandwidth performance in a thread-safe environment. The MPI allows binary programs linked with Scali MPI Connect to run on any of the supported interconnects without recompilation or relinking. Whether the cluster is built using Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, Infiniband, or a combination, applications and users need only interact with Scali MPI Connect.

As for Scali MPI Connect support for Linux on POWER platforms, the University of Colorado's computing environment has seen encouraging results: 'We need Linux clusters that are flexible, powerful and robust,' says Henry Tufo, Associate Professor at the school's Computer Science Department.

'Scali MPI Connect is showing us excellent performance gains on the IBM POWER platform....' Here to explain more is James C. Biggs, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Americas, of Scali Inc.

ISVs and other partners of IBM often tell us they are porting to Linux on POWER as a response to client requests. Was Scali's decision to have its MPI software extend support to POWER processor-based servers based on the same?

Says Biggs: 'Given the performance characteristics of the IBM POWER platform, Scali was increasingly asked about support of the IBM POWER platform. In addition to end users, software partners like Novell and Schlumberger also requested this support.

'The IBM POWER platform typically appeals to commercial customers who expect best-of-breed solutions based on fully-supported software stacks. Scali and IBM can team to provide a total quality solution that offers both high performance and full support.

'As IBM moves to Linux-based clusters on POWER, Scali's MPI software is there to provide one of the only fully supported, professional solutions in the industry.

'Fundamentally, Scali's customers need their mission-critical applications to perform at the highest level. To accomplish this, they need the flexibility to deploy applications into any environment quickly, with minimal disruption to their applications. Scali's solution enables them to use a single binary across multiple hardware platforms. They get portability and less application environments to support.'

How does Scali software leverage POWER processors?

Replys Biggs: 'Since the IBM POWER platform seems to offer the best performance per power consumption, it will continue to be popular in large compute-intensive environments. The superior memory bandwidth of the POWER systems is also very important to Scali's HPC customers in manufacturing and oil segments.'

What particular markets can Scali reach advantageously with IBM as partners that otherwise might not be as easy?

'Oil & Gas,' says Biggs, 'where large compute farms are optimal for IBM POWER (especially blade) architectures, Life Sciences, Manufacturing and EDA are four of the markets that seem to be very ready to adapt IBM POWER platforms. Scali wants to provide a fully cross-platform solution to our customers in these markets.'

'POWER platform' pertains to a number of models in the IBM eServer line. Out of all the new debuts from IBM incorporating the 'power' of POWER processors-OpenPower, pSeries, etc.,-which of these most attract a company Scali?

'All of the POWER platforms are interesting to Scali,' says Biggs. 'So far, we have achieved excellent performance based on initial test results with LoP. Based on these results, we look forward to the opportunity to quantify our benefit on the other offerings.'

Where does Scali see most of its business activity? Through its strategic partners? Or through direct sales?

Biggs says: 'Most of Scali's business activities come from joint activities with our business partners, but many customers work directly with Scali to gain access to Scali's competencies-in Linux cluster design, implementation, management, and optimization.'