SYNOPSIS

High-Performance Computing (HPC) is one of the most interesting developments in the information technology (IT) industry in the past few years. It's also one of the most-overlooked. Essentially, HPC enables an organization to harness massive computing power by distributing workloads across numerous relatively-inexpensive computers. Rather than investing millions in a supercomputer, you simply aggregate the power of multiple PC-based servers-often "commodity" servers-built using standardized components and architectures. Adding computing power is as easy as adding new servers to the HPC cluster.

In this brief entitled Simplified High-Performance Computing for Everyone, author and IT expert Don Jones offers the basics of High-Performance Computing and explains how it is helping organizations of all kinds churn through incredible amounts of data much faster. He cuts through the complexity of HPC, offering a high-level view of how it can help your company, and how to properly prepare for implementation.

Topics include:

• What Is HPC?
• Assessing Your HPC Needs
• Other Components You’ll Need
• Don't Forget the Storage
• Getting the Right Software
• Making It All Work Together
• HPC: Ready for Your Organization

CHAPTER PREVIEWS

Simplified High-Performance Computing for Everyone

What is HPC?

HPC solutions consist of clusters of computers. The idea is simple: Take a massive workload that would require far too long for a normal computer to process, break that workload into chunks, and distribute those chunks across a set, or cluster, of computers. With multiple computers working on the problem at once, the problem is solved faster. A central coordinator, often called the master node, distributes workload to the computers working on the actual problem-the cluster's compute nodes.