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HP SPEAKS OPENLY ABOUT INTEL, AMD, COMPETITION

On February 24, 2004 HP announced that it is expanding its industry-standard server portfolio with the addition of AMD Opteron x86 processors with 64-bit extensions to the HP ProLiant server family. HPCwire spoke with Winston Prather, Vice President and General Manager of HP's High Performance Technical Computing (HPTC) Division about what this means for HPTC customers.

Q: Winston, can you tell us how these new products benefit HPTC customers?

Winston Prather: The addition of Opteron to our ProLiant product line is in response to customer demand, including HPTC customers, for more price/performance choices based on industry standards. This technology fills a gap in the 32-bit market for applications that need expanded memory capabilities. The 64-bit capability of the Opteron processor enables 64-bit computing by facilitating the 32-bit to 64-bit transition and increasing the addressable memory limitations of previous x86 architectures.

HP's Opteron processor-based ProLiant servers provide HPTC customers with a new choice for an excellent mid-range, scale-out solution for moderate workloads, using 2p or 4p nodes. These new systems provide the best 32-bit throughput performance, the best price/performance with 32/64-bit co- existence, and the highest memory bandwidth for sustained performance.

The new ProLiant systems provide HPTC customers with the demonstrated price/performance, floating point and scalable bandwidth performance advantages of the Opteron processor. Examples of benchmarks demonstrating these advantages include the SPECfp_rate 2000, demonstrating the floating point throughput advantages (based on preliminary estimates), and Streams benchmarks, demonstrating the scalable bandwidth.

Q: You mentioned scale-out solutions. Will you incorporate Opteron processor- based HP ProLiant servers into your HPTC cluster systems?

WP: Yes, the new HP ProLiant DL145 and DL585 servers based on the AMD Opteron processor will be powering new HPTC solutions, including our XC, LC and other HPTC clusters. We will also, with support from our partners, provide the ecosystem for these solutions, including infrastructure, tools and applications. LC clusters based on the HP ProLiant DL145 nodes and XC clusters based on both the DL145 and DL585 will be available later this year.

Q: Will you still support 32-bit Xeon-based ProLiant systems and 64-bit Itanium 2-based Integrity servers in your HPTC clusters?

WP: Oh yes, the Opteron-based ProLiant severs complement our 32-bit ProLiant and 64-bit Integrity systems. They fill a gap in the mid range, providing an even more robust and complete range of products for HPTC customers.

Our HPTC clusters will continue to support 32-bit Xeon-based ProLiant systems for simple, highly parallel workloads that require scale-out solutions with 2p nodes. Our Integrity systems continue to offer the ultimate 64-bit scalable performance (up to 64p) for complex workloads requiring scale-up and scale-out solutions - mission critical technical computing.

Integrity servers provide extraordinary floating point performance based on the advanced computational features of the Itanium processor. They also provide leadership SMP scalability to 64 processors today, and a rich 64-bit application ecosystem with HP-UX. The x86 processors with 64-bit extensions will actually serve to accelerate the adoption and development of 64-bit ecosystems and the Intel Itanium platform. The improved 32-bit performance of these processors complements Itanium's 64-bit performance superiority and provides a stepping stone for full 64-bit adoption based on Itanium. For 64- bit computing and migration, Itanium is the superior performance and price/performance choice for today and the future.

Q: Intel announced 64-bit extensions to Xeon at the Intel Developers Forum last week - will HP support these Intel processors as well?

WP: Absolutely - our ProLiant Xeon-based systems will ship with these processors as soon as they are available, giving customers further choice of Industry standard platforms. These processors will narrow the performance gap between Opteron and Xeon processor based systems that exist today. However, we expect that certain memory bandwidth sensitive applications will continue to benefit from the Opteron HyperTransport technology in multiprocessor systems.

It's all about more choice. HP provides the most complete range of scalable systems and clusters in the marketplace. Our support of AMD and Intel x86 processors with 64-bit extensions expands that range even further.

Q: Specifically, what kind of HPTC applications will benefit most from these Opteron-based products?

WP: The new systems will be excellent fits in environments where the workload is a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit applications, such as Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and Oil & Gas. Applications that are compute intensive and run well on clusters of IA-32 based systems, such as many CFD applications, will also see advantages with Opteron clusters.

Q: You mentioned the "ecosystem" for your cluster systems. Please elaborate.

WP: Are you sure you want me to? Our above the node added value is quite rich, I could go on for awhile…

HP's strategy is to leverage the cost/performance benefits of commercial-off- the-shelf technologies, and provide our added value in the system design and layered software. That is why we are the industry leader in HPTC cluster technology -- extensive added value above the node.

HP has years of experience building the fastest clustered supercomputers in the world. We are applying that know-how to simplify the support and deployment of HP-UX and Linux clusters based on our full range of ProLiant and Integrity servers.

Performance engineering for HPTC cluster configurations is a high priority, including HP-UX and Linux optimizations for HPTC. Increasing the ease of cluster management is another focus area for us. We provide advanced cluster management tools for both HP-UX and Linux. These tools provide single-system administration for cluster ease-of-use, reliability and productivity. We are also packaging and integrating cluster systems to make it easy for customers to purchase and support. Our XC and LC clusters for HPTC are examples of this.

HPTC customers often create their own software applications, and HP has one of the richest software development environments available. These tools include HP's very well regarded libraries for message passing, HP MPI, and mathematics, MLIB. In addition, we work with numerous partners to provide our customers with the best software development tools.

Finally, HP maintains the most extensive portfolio of optimized technical applications through our partnerships with ISVs. In fact, over 300 technical computing applications are optimized for our Itanium2-based systems alone.

All of this work is accomplished through our extensive HPTC consulting and support services, including the HPC Expertise Center, the HP scalable cluster center in Littleton, MA, and HPTC Systems Engineering. These groups collaborate on development, benchmarking and certification for our scale-out products.

Q: What about R&D? What hot technology are you working on?

WP: One of the hottest R&D projects, in terms of cluster technology, is our leadership work on Lustre-based file systems for Linux. Lustre is a new paradigm for scalable file systems and it will significantly increase I/O performance and decrease costs. HP is a prime contractor for the Tri-labs Pathforward project to develop Lustre in conjunction with Cluster File Systems, Inc. and Intel. HP is building on this research to produce Lustre- based products for HPTC.

We also collaborate with HP Labs, customers and partners on advanced research and development. HP strongly believes in the power of collaboration in developing best-in-class technologies and furthering innovation. We recently created the HP Collaboration and Competency Network (HP CCN), a forum to facilitate wide-ranging collaboration, innovation and competency sharing amongst HP, our customers and partners.

HP is at heart a technology company. HP Labs has made HP a technology leader, including leadership in Grid computing, scientific visualization, and molecular electronics.

Q: How does HP distinguish itself from IBM, Dell and other competitors in HPTC?

WP: HP is the #1 provider of HPTC solutions. We are the market share leaders according to IDC and we have more systems on the Top500 list than any other vendor - for the fourth consecutive time now.

What's gotten us here, and what sets us apart today, is the balance we provide customers - a balance between total "openness" - that is a white-box, download-your-OS-from-the-Internet kind of environment - and a proprietary, locked-in one. We see Dell as the former - you order components and they show up on the loading dock and the rest is up to you. On the other end is IBM with AIX and proprietary hardware and processor technology. HP has the entire spectrum covered - we can give you an open, standards-based environment, but you don't have to take the risk of a "roll-your-own" IT infrastructure.

Q: How would you characterize HP's strategy for HPTC going forward?

WP: HP will leverage its corporate expertise in delivering high performance systems that scale up; cost-effective, powerful clusters that scale out; and single system-image solutions that scale simply. We will continue to build strategic alliances with the most demanding customers and partner with the best-of-kind developers for all aspects of the applications software solution and other key HPTC technologies.