“Penguin on Demand” Extends Cloud Computing by Making High-Density HPC
Available as a Service
SAN FRANCISCO (Aug. 11, 2009) – Penguin Computing, experts in high
performance computing solutions, today announced the immediate
availability of “Penguin on Demand™” – or POD – a new service that
delivers, for the first time, a complete high performance computing
(HPC) solution in the cloud. POD extends the concept of cloud
computing by making optimized compute resources designed specifically
for HPC available on demand. POD is targeted at researchers,
scientists and engineers who require surge capacity for time-critical
analyses or organizations that need HPC capabilities without the
expense and effort required to acquire HPC clusters.
“The most popular cloud infrastructures today, such as Amazon EC2, are
not optimized for the high performance parallel computing often
required in the research and simulation sciences,” said Charles
Wuischpard, CEO at Penguin Computing. “POD delivers immediate access
to high density HPC computing, a resource that is difficult or
impossible for many users to utilize in a timely and cost-effective
way. We believe POD will promote new and faster innovation by enabling
access to scalable high performance computing to a much broader market.”
POD: A Complete HPC Solution in the Cloud
POD provides a computing infrastructure of highly optimized Linux
clusters with specialized hardware interconnects and software
configurations tuned specifically for HPC. Rather than utilizing
machine virtualization, as is typical in traditional cloud computing,
POD allows users to access a server’s full resources at one time for
maximum performance and I/O for massive HPC workloads.
Comprising high-density Xeon-based compute nodes coupled with high-
speed storage, POD provides a persistent compute environment that runs
on a head node and executes directly on the compute nodes’ physical
cores. Both GigE and DDR high-performance Infiniband network fabrics
are available. POD customers also get access to state-of-the-art GPU
supercomputing with NVIDIA Tesla processor technology. Jobs typically
run over a localized network topology to maximize inter-process
communication, to maximize bandwidth and minimize latency.
“We have been working with Penguin Computing on their POD offering for
several months, and we are very pleased with the results,” said Dr.
Natalia Trayanova, professor of biomedical engineering at Johns
Hopkins University and chief scientific officer at CardioSolv, a
company specializing in predictive cardiac modeling and simulation.
“We found significantly better scaling when we switched from a
traditional cloud solution to POD, which is essential in enabling us
to deliver relevant results in a reasonable amount of time."
Penguin Computing offers a full range of expert support and services
for POD customers, providing a complete HPC solution in the cloud.
Support is included for POD application set-up, creation of the HPC
computing environment, ongoing maintenance, data exchange services and
application tuning. In addition, POD includes persistent storage for
local data and user-defined compute environments. Additional services
are available through Penguin’s Professional Services.
“Penguin Computing has been providing ready-to-run HPC clusters,
optimized software environments and professional services for years.
Penguin on Demand is an innovative way for our customers to take
advantage of our HPC expertise combined with Penguin-designed HPC
clusters to meet the real-time demands of their business,” said Tom
Coull, senior vice president and general manager of Products and
Engineering at Penguin Computing.
For more information about Penguin on Demand (POD), please go to www.penguincomputing.com/POD/Penguin_On_Demand
.
About Penguin Computing
Penguin Computing, headquartered in San Francisco, California,
specializes in complete, integrated HPC clustering solutions. Penguin
has been a successful innovator for over a decade, providing Linux HPC
solutions to a variety of industries. Penguin’s staff, including the
originator of the Beowulf Cluster architecture, has unsurpassed
experience in delivering a powerful combination of fully integrated
HPC clusters, comprehensive cluster management software, and services.
For more information about Penguin Computing and Penguin products,
please go to http://www.penguincomputing.com.
