HPC User Site Census: Operating Systems

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 the operating systems used for HPC environments. Most HPC users run the Linux operating system; this report includes a breakdown
of types of Linux, spanning CentOS, Red Hat, SUSE, and Other. In the case of operating systems, we find there is significant variation regionally,
so we additionally include segmentation of Linux types by region: North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, Latin America. We also segment Linux version
distribution by economic sector: commercial, academic, government.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Methodology

Total Responses

HPC NETWORKING TECHNOLOGIES

Definitions

Operating Systems

Table 1: Operating Systems for Reported HPC Systems

Figure 1: Types of Linux for Reported HPC Systems Running Linux

Linux Segmentation by Region and Sector

Table 2: Linux Version by Region of Respondent

Table 3: Linux Version by Economic Sector