POD is a high-performance, scalable, on-demand HPC environment with high-density compute nodes and direct attached high-speed storage. POD users have a persistent and secure compute environment that executes jobs directly on the compute nodes physical cores. Both GigE and high performance InfiniBand networks are available for compute node interconnects. Jobs run over a localized network topology to maximize inter-process communications (minimum latency and maximum bandwidth).

POD Architecture: Hardware

Compute Nodes

Each compute node has:

• Dual-quad core Xeon 2.66 GHz
• 32GB memory
• Up to 1TB scratch local storage per node

POD can be rapidly configured or scaled:

• Grows as capacity is need
• Adding specialized compute environments (such as high-memory capacity nodes

GPU computing is available via NVIDIA’s C1060 GPU co-processor1Tesla GPU (240 processor cores):

• 4 GB dedicated memory
• 102 GB/s peak bandwidth

POD Architecture: Network

Internet Connectivity:

• POD has redundant high speed Internet connections to allow you to easily move data into and out of the HPC environment. Depending on the customer configuration, connectivity can be anywhere from 50Mbps to 1Gbps. We work with customers to optimize data transfers across the WAN.

1Gb/10Gb Ethernet:

• The standard POD HPC environment has all compute nodes connected via GbE. The network topology is localized to ensure maximum bandwidth and minimum latency between nodes offering good IPC performance. The storage systems are each made available via 10GbE to the local compute cluster.
• Customized POD HPC solutions can offer full bisectional bandwidth on 10GbE for large clusters. POD leverages Penguin Computing HPC expertise in deploying the best performing networks to its customers.

Infiniband:

• Our Infiniband network offers the highest performing lowest latency interconnect to meet the requirements of POD customers using the most demanding HPC software.

POD Architecture: Storage

High Speed NFS:

• Our standard storage offering for POD HPC customers is through the PODStore systems. They offer high performance NFS access through 10GbE attached storage systems.

Parallel Filesystems:

• For more demanding and specialized workloads POD HPC offers parallel filesystem options attached via multiple 10GbE links and Infiniband.

Hosted Storage Servers:

• Some customers require dedicated storage servers to isolate data and to facilitate encryption/decryption of high volumes of data being shipped rather than transferred over the network. These dedicated storage servers are made available to the compute cluster at wire speed to ensure efficient utilization of resources for the workloads.