INDUSTRY

FRAMINGHAM, MA -- IDC today reported the newest rankings of supercomputer performance based on its comprehensive standard test, called the IDC Balanced Rating. The test, developed with extensive input from the high-performance computing (HPC) community, is important because industrial competitiveness and scientific progress depend on this most-powerful class of computers. “Despite the strategic and economic importance of supercomputers and HPC systems, there have been no generally available databases or tools for analyzing and comparing these complex technologies along the multiple dimensions which highlight overall system performance,” said Debra Goldfarb, IDC group vice president, Worldwide Systems and Servers. “User organizations need a source of common system specification data, and top-level tools for sorting through various aspects of the technologies to better understand and explain how different computer architectures match their requirements. The IDC Balanced Rating provides one such top-level analysis and ranking.” The latest rankings list 893 currently installed HPC systems in four market segments. “Our goal is to document as many of the world’s installed HPC systems as possible, and make the data available for free to the entire HPC community,” said Earl Joseph II, IDC Research Director, Worldwide Systems and Servers. The four market segments are: 1. Technical Capability Computers: Systems purchased to solve the most demanding problems. 2. Technical Enterprise Computers: Capacity systems that sell for $1 million or more. 3. Technical Divisional Computers: Capacity systems sold from $250,000 to $999,000. 4. Technical Departmental Computers: Capacity systems sold for less than $250,000. The IDC Balanced Rating focuses on three broad performance areas: • Processor performance. SPECfp_rate_base2000, SPECint_rate_base2000 and Linpack Rmax results are used. In the future, additional processor metrics will be incorporated. • Memory system capability. Actual performance is dependent on how much data can be moved into and out of the processors in a given time period. For the IDC Balanced Rating, memory bandwidth and the system level STREAM TRIAD benchmarks are used. • Scaling capability. Total processor count and total system memory and interconnect bandwidth are used. In the future, latency and other metrics will be integrated into the benchmark based on the availability of consistent data on HPC computers. “Predicting the performance characteristics of a computer for your specific application codes is a very complex process and buyers often narrow the field of choices by first deciding on the basic computer architecture type, e.g., a single computer vs. a cluster, large nodes vs. small nodes, RISC vs. vectors, etc. Any broad ranking list like this one is often more useful in the acquisition of lower priced computers since you can’t afford to spent a million dollars to evaluate buying a $200,000 system,” said Joseph. “Data for some tests within the IDC Balanced Rating are readily available, such as the Linpack test that measures aspects of processor performance,” said Joseph. “Some vendors have not yet run all the other tests that are important for assessing a system’s overall capabilities, or don’t have results yet for all of their listed systems. The IDC Balanced Rating is a major step forward today and will become increasingly valuable over time, as the data picture is expanded and as the approach evolves.” Joseph said that draft results of the latest IDC Balanced Rating were circulated several times within the HPC User Forum, a group of leading U.S. high-performance computing users from government, industry and academia, and to others within the global HPC community. “Any new measurement scheme like this needs time to mature. For this second edition of the IDC Balanced Rating, as with the first edition, we made a concerted effort to involve a large number of reviewers and incorporate their constructive feedback. We invite suggestions at all times via email to hpc@idc.com. To quickly provide the community with updates to the list, based on the addition of new computers, adding missing data items, or the correction of errors, we will continually update the full database at the web site.” US Department of Defense and HPC User Forum Members Plan To Fund Applications-based Performance Modeling Tools Goldfarb also announced that the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), along with the HPC User Forum, plans to fund a 12-month effort at approximately $250,000 to develop an integrated set of tools and methodologies for performance modeling and performance prediction of large applications on HPC systems. “We are very pleased that the HPC User Forum has established an environment that facilitates the creation of joint initiatives to investigate these important performance issues and provides a forum for the discussion of these issues,” said Larry Davis of the DoD HPCMP. Davis said that Allan Snavely and Laura Carrington of the San Diego Supercomputer Center will lead the development effort. Data from this effort will be used to further strengthen and support the scientific underpinnings of the IDC Balanced Ratings, as well as the HPC User Forum-sponsored user benchmark tool that will allow each user to set his or her own weightings for various system attributes that can then be used to compared potential HPC systems for a given workload. A detailed report and the full list of 893 computers are available without charge at: www.idc.com/hpc. The same website includes a new tool that allows site visitors to custom-rank the 893 listed HPC systems according to their own computing priorities.