case study

With the rising popularity of open-source-based solutions, high-performance computing (HPC) has infiltrated research labs, data centers, financial institutions, and engineering suites. Given these increasingly complex environments, IT professionals face an ongoing challenge: finding suitable tools to effectively monitor, manage, and configure complex cloud-computing installations and HPC clusters. To tackle this challenge, PSSC Labs combines high-performance, open-source components with proven Intel® Xeon® processor-based platforms to create competitive solutions for the top tiers of computing requirements.

OP

en S

Ou

rCe

On

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Commodity supercomputing

has really transformed the industry. I think the

world has evolved to the point where you want

variety and you want choices and you want

inexpensive supercomputing.

– Alex Lesser, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, PSSC Labs“

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Challenge

PSSC Labs’ objective was to expand the

capabilities of high-performance cluster computing to a wider range of customers. As part of this goal, its development team set out to enhance the manageability of complex compute environments and to customize individual deployments to meet the requirements of high-end customers in scientific, financial, and educational markets.

Solution

the team sought to integrate the latest, most reliable, open-source components into solutions to increase performance and enhance stability. The adoption of Intel® software drivers enabled PSSC Labs to handle Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) operations in a consistent, predictable way. Validation of PSSC solutions through the Intel® Cluster ready program strengthens their credibility.

ReSultS

By leveraging open-source components on Intel® architecture, PSSC Labs has been able to bring exceptional, cost-effective solutions to market faster. With CBeST* and PowerWulf* Clusters, PSSC Labs’ customers are better able to manage and monitor their cloud-computing or supercomputing infrastructures. Customers of PSSC Labs have a single point of contact for deployment, support, and maintenance.

OPen SOurCe On InTeL® ArCHITeCTure MAkeS SuPerCOMPuTInG ACCeSSIBLe fOr ALL

Managing CoMplex CoMputing environMents:

C=70 M=94 Y=38 K=38

As a leading provider of turnkey computing clusters for bioinformatics, PSSC Labs delivers the computing power and storage needed to analyze the enormous data sets in today’s next-generation sequencing environments.

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inventthe Shift to open Source in Supercomputing The technology acceleration spurred by open-source development has propelled Linux* to the top of the charts in the supercomputing realm. The vast majority of the world’s supercomputers are running some variant of Linux, with estimates ranging from 91 to 95 percent. Of the supercomputers on the TOP5001 list, compiled by Hans Meuer of the university of Mannheim, Germany, over 70 percent feature Intel® processors.

The prevalence of Linux at these high levels creates a strong need for management tools and open-source expertise to harness supercomputing capabilities effectively and make it easier to monitor, administer, and customize HPC installations. With more than 10 years of experience in open source, PSSC Labs relies on the flexibility of Linux to tailor its flagship products, CBeST and PowerWulf Cluster, for production environments, including life science facilities, data centers, and design and engineering installations.

taming the Complexities of high-Performance Computing PSSC Labs has built its business around the fact that to the uninitiated the price of entry to supercomputing—both financially and technologically—can be steep. To address this challenge, the company packages its CBeST and PowerWulf Cluster solutions as a comprehensive offering, complete with setup, support, and training at an attractive price point. Alex Lesser, vice president of Sales and Marketing at PSSC Labs commented, “As intimidating as supercomputing can be, the fact that customers receive a turnkey solution with the software, the hardware, and the networking already installed and configured makes life a lot easier for them.”

The heart of PSSC Labs’ flagship solution, CBeST (Complete Beowulf Software Toolkit), includes utilities, custom scripts, and monitoring tools for comprehensive cloud and cluster management. CBeST, based on CentOS Linux, also incorporates a number of open-source components, including Ganglia Monitoring Suite, System Imager (for replication and updating), TOrQue / Open PBS (for batch scheduling), and Open MPI (for messaging passing). Intel® Compiler Suite is available as an add-on and the IPMI driver provides monitoring and management at the hardware level.

opening the Market to high-Performance ComputingOne of the most dramatic breakthroughs in both open source and HPC is the tremendous market potential that has been created. Lesser comments that open-source software on Intel® x86 architecture has opened up a whole new area of the market to supercomputing applications. “People can now actually get into an HPC solution for less than $50,000,” he said. “A lot of that is because the open-source packages have become more and more accepted, and, in fact, they are more or less expected when purchasing a system.” Lesser noted that historically, if you wanted to buy a supercomputer, you could expect to spend tens and maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, with Intel architecture and open-source software, market adoption of HPC has increased significantly.

Intel’s long-term commitment to the open-source community—including development of drivers to unlock advanced hardware capabilities and optimization work on open-source projects to improve scalability and performance—has been a vital factor in democratizing supercomputing across the market.

Intel® x86 technology has gotten so powerful that you can do supercomputer-level computations and solve complex problems using [Intel-based] x86 processors, instead of using SPARC or other proprietary products. – Alex Lesser, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, PSSC Labs

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By leveraging community- developed, open-source so

ftware components on

Intel architecture, we are able to bring our high-

performance computing solutions to market

faster and with less cost. This significantly

reduces the purchase price of our solutions.

– Alex Lesser, Vice President of

Sales and Marketing, PSSC Labs

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As one of the most prolific contributors to the Linux* kernel, Intel has helped establish Linux as a leading commercial operating system for the most demanding environments, such as high-performance computing. These contributions help improve the performance, scalability, security, and power-efficiency of Linux for systems of every size and application.

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collaborate

Reducing Both operating Costs and Capital CostsPSSC Labs takes advantage of energy-efficiency features built into the Intel® Xeon® processor e7 family and Intel® Xeon® processor e5 family. Intel® Intelligent Power Technology monitors how power is being used in different operating states and maximizes performance while conserving power. In turn, Intel’s contributions to open-source projects make these capabilities more accessible to applications and help deliver optimal levels of functionality.

for example, PSSC Labs uses the Gnu* Compiler Collection (GCC) in its solutions. The porting of Intel® Cilk™ Plus into GCC enhances parallel programming constructs so that PSSC Labs delivers improved performance on multicore processors to its customers. PSSC Labs solutions also benefit from the extensive work that Intel has done to improve the performance, scalability, and reliability of the Linux kernel (upon which CentOS Linux is based). These improvements are manifested as enhanced capabilities in PSSC Labs solutions.

According to Lesser, PSSC Labs customers are primarily concerned with two things: capital costs and operating costs. The cost-effective Intel®-based server components help lower initial capital costs of the hardware. And ongoing IT operating costs, which are substantially tied to energy usage, can be lowered through intelligent engineering.

“We optimize the BIOS to work with the capabilities of the Intel Xeon processors and to manage how the power is being used in different states,” Lesser said. “The latest Intel Xeon processors let us deliver energy efficiency to customers to reduce their overall operating costs.”

Power efficiency gains are also realized in the data center from the availability of Intel® Intelligent Power node Manager, which optimizes power and cooling resources.

Focusing on Performance and ManageabilityPSSC Labs has established itself in a competitive market by carving out a niche where performance is the driver. “Our only focus is high-performance computing,” Lesser said, “and 95 percent of the products that ship out of our facility use Linux and open source.” recognizing that its customer base requires highly reliable, highly scalable, and highly supportable technology, PSSC Labs has turned to open source on Intel architecture to deliver exactly what customers want.

Manageability is also a key customer concern. The use of Intel IPMI software drivers in each PowerWulf Cluster provides comprehensive hardware monitoring and management to meet customer requirements more effectively.

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World-Record technical Computing and high-Performance Computing

PSSC Labs delivers a substantial advantage to its customers by optimizing its solutions for Intel® platforms. The Intel® Xeon® processor e5 and Intel® Xeon® processor e7 families have achieved an impressive array of world records and other top results on technical computing and high-performance computing benchmarks, and these results give PSSC an outstanding foundation on which to build. As each generation of Intel® Xeon® processors continues to deliver new breakthrough performance, and Intel contributions to the Linux kernel unlock these capabilities, PSSC’s customers can be confident that their solutions will benefit even further.

> see platform performance highlights at intel.com/performance

Clusters Made Simpler through intel® Cluster Ready

Intel Cluster ready is both a program and an architecture that simplifies the implementation of high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. Developed in concert with hardware and software vendors, Intel Cluster ready lets you match your HPC applications to today’s leading platforms and components. Pre-configured cluster solutions are delivered ready to run, so you can unleash more parallel performance faster.

> Visit the Intel Cluster ready site at software.intel.com/en-us/cluster-ready

SummaryPSSC Labs has channeled their expertise in Linux and open-source development into a product offering that delivers genuine turnkey supercomputing capabilities at a fraction of the cost of conventional solutions. Through kernel optimization, comprehensive management tools, and performance and reliability of Intel architecture, PSSC has produced a competitive solution that has been embraced by nASA, the united states department of defense, united states National Labs, and over 100 prestigious universities.

1 http://www.top500.org/lists/2012/11/Intel may make changes to specifications and product descriptions at any time, without notice. Designers must not rely on the absence or characteristics of any features or instructions marked “reserved” or “undefined.” Intel reserves these for future definition and shall have no responsibility whatsoever for conflicts or incompatibilities arising from future changes to them. The information here is subject to change without notice. Do not finalize a design with this information. The products described in this document may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. Current characterized errata are available on request. Contact your local Intel sales office or your distributor to obtain the latest specifications and before placing your product order. Copies of documents which have an order number and are referenced in this document, or other Intel literature, may be obtained by calling 1-800-548-4725, or by visiting Intel’s Web Site www.intel.com. Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark* and MobileMark*, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products. For more information go to www.intel.com/performance. Information in this document is provided in connection with Intel® products. No license, express or implied, by estoppel or otherwise, to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document. Except as provided in Intel‘s terms and conditions of sale for such products, Intel assumes no liability whatsoever, and Intel disclaims any express or implied warranty, relating to sale and/or use of Intel products including liability or warranties relating to fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, or infringement of any patent, copyright or other intellectual property right.*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.Copyright © 2013 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel, the Intel logo, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.0113/NKR/MESH/PDF 328327-001US

Linux contributions

building blocks

industry standards

commercial ecosystem

academic research

tools and resources

customer solutions

OPEN SOURCE

on Intel

spark

www.intel.com/opensource

intel takes pride in being a long-standing member of the open-source community. We believe in open source development as a means to create rich business opportunities, advance promising technologies, and bring together top talent from diverse fields to solve computing challenges. Our contributions to the community include reliable hardware architectures, professional development tools, work on essential open-source components, collaboration and co-engineering with leading companies, investment in academic research and commercial businesses, and helping to build a thriving ecosystem around open source.