HPC User Site Census: Processor Technologies

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Intersect360 Research surveyed the High Performance Computing (HPC) user community to complete its eleventh Site Census study. The study is a look at their
current computer system installations, storage systems, networks, middleware, and application software supporting these computer installations. This
report provides a detailed examination of HPC systems and technologies installed among responding HPC user sites. Our goal in this analysis is to provide
an overview of how HPC systems are configured, including the breadth of technologies most commonly used.

Our Site Census survey results can be found in many reports, including the following:

  • HPC System Configurations and Technologies
  • HPC System Vendors Installed
  • HPC Storage Configurations and Technologies
  • HPC Storage Vendors Installed
  • HPC Networking Technologies
  • HPC Processing Technologies (Including Accelerators)
  • HPC Operating System Installations
  • HPC Middleware and Tool Installations
  • HPC Application Installations (segmented into application domains):

    • Biosciences
    • Business: Business intelligence, analytics, pattern recognition, ERP, CRM, security, complex event processing, general business
    • Chemistry
    • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
    • Engineering: Structural analysis, electronic design automation (EDA), general engineering
    • Finance and economics
    • Geophysics
    • Physics
    • Scientific research
    • Visualization and image analysis
    • Weather modeling, climate modeling, environment modeling

This report looks at processor elements for HPC systems, including both CPUs and accelerators. This analysis includes both a look at how processors are
configured in HPC systems, and the reported vendors of both CPUs and accelerators. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • INTRODUCTION
  • Methodology
  • Total Responses
  • Table 1: HPC User Site Census Responses for HPC System Analysis
  • HPC PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGIES
  • Definitions
  • CPUs
  • Figure 1: Architecture of Reported HPC Systems
  • Table 2: Total Nodes Reported in HPC Systems, by Architecture
  • Table 3: CPUs per Node for Reported Distributed-Memory HPC Systems
  • Figure 2: Cores per CPU in Reported Distributed-Memory HPC Systems, by Year Installed or Last Modified
  • Table 4: Cores per CPU in Reported Distributed-Memory HPC Systems, by Year Installed or Last Modified
  • Table 5: Processor Architecture of Reported CPUs in HPC Systems
  • Table 6: CPU Vendor by Year of System Installation or Last Modification
  • Table 7: CPU Vendor by HPC System Size (CPUs per System)
  • Accelerators
  • Figure 3: Proportion of Reported HPC Systems Using Accelerators, by Year of Installation or Last Modification
  • Table 8: Accelerator Vendor of Reported HPC Systems