High Performance Computing: past, present and future - Storage Networking

Computer Technology Review, Jan, 2004 by Bruce Moxon

Into the Future: Diskless Clusters

High performance shared storage architectures capable of effectively serving thousands of compute nodes are further changing the HPC landscape. In an effort to improve manageability and increase system reliability, a number of researchers are developing diskless clusters that exploit these shared storage architectures. Diskless clusters simplify the node architecture by removing local disk and other non-essential components, significantly reducing the probability of node failure. This approach further reduces per-node costs and increases node density to provide increased levels of price-performance. To exploit these improvements, new operating system approaches such as the Beowulf Distributed Process Space project (BProc) are under way to further simplify cluster management.

Proponents claim that such an approach provides higher availability and improves reliability, resource utilization and overall system performance. These benefits, together with a simplified management model, accelerate commodity supercomputing.

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Bruce Moxon is manager, vertical marketing, for Panasas, Inc. (Fremont, CA)