As published in Top500
Top Six Predictions Pinpoint Trends in Accelerators, Cloud, Big Data, and Shifting Vendor Market Dynamics
SUNNYVALE, CA—February 24, 2015—The drive toward exascale computing, a renewed emphasis on data-centric processing, energy efficiency concerns,
and the limitations of memory and I/O performance are all working to reshape High Performance Computing platforms, according to Intersect360 Research’s
Top Six Predictions for HPC in 2015.
The research firm cites many-core accelerators, flash storage, 3D memory, integrated networking, and optical interconnects as just some of the technologies
propelling these future architectures. In concert with those developments, the churning of the HPC vendor landscape in response to broader market
forces will drive interesting changes in the coming year.
Following the general trend of acceleration adoption over the past several years, in 2015 more than half of newly installed systems are expected to
incorporate accelerators. On the other hand, public cloud will continue to be a small player in HPC, despite steady expansion of cloud computing
for mainstream enterprise and web-based applications.
HPC system vendors will find their market share reshuffled to adjust for Tier One vendor changes, most notably IBM’s sale of its x86 server business
to Lenovo and HP’s split into two entities. Vendor consolidation will continue, especially in the storage arena.
Another trend predicted for the coming year is the prevalence of big data capabilities, which are expected to become standard offerings on general-purpose
servers and storage appliances. And lastly, ultrascale market influence will disrupt the supplier model as ultrascale market players have grown
to the point where they have the buying power to influence product design and bypass traditional OEM suppliers.
“2015 will see increased architectural experimentation,” reports Chief Research Officer Christopher Willard, Ph.D. “Users will test both low-cost nodes
and new technology strategies in an effort to find a balance between these options that delivers the best performance within user budgets.”