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Have you ever wondered while driving how effortlessly you shift gears and how smoothly it works in spite of the substantial load? Or, how a weather forecaster can predict weather patterns, and the possibility of turbulence on the flight path? All these are made possible through computer aided simulations using raw data commonly called as high performance computing or HPC.

When a product such as a gearbox, finally makes its way through the manufacturing process, it undergoes rigorous real-time simulations. These simulations create real life scenarios that enable engineers to test the characteristics of the product under diverse conditions. The term HPC is self-explanatory in a way where traditional computing ends, high performance computing takes over. HPC ushers in a high degree of performance needed for compute intensive applications. In the formative years, HPC was confined to large government entities like the NASA among others. What used to be termed supercomputing then has now hit mainstream applications. This is made possible with the rapid escalation of processing technologies, and has since found many takers in several industry verticals ranging from BFSI to manufacturing.

Growing Apps
With HPC coming out of the purview of typical lab environments and into commercial use, real growth has started. And the ever increasing demand for such computing abilities is in turn fueling the need for more powerful technologies. Typical consumers for HPC today are from industry clusters like nanotechnology, electronics design automation (EDA), life sciences apps like gene modeling or drug discovery and host of others applications.

The BFSI space, with an increasing need for value-added services, like eBanking etc is among the prominent consumers of HPC. Moreover, with the advent of technologies and enterprise applications like analytical and operational BI, organizations need systems capable of statistical and multi-dimensional analysis to be able to forecast consumer demand patterns, logistics, et al. These as well as other such demand scenarios are leading to increasing adoption.

Hi-Performance, Hi-Growth
According to technology market researcher IDC, the high-performance and technical computing (HPTC) market grew approximately 24% in 2005 to reach a record $9.2 bn in revenues. This is the second consecutive year of over 20% growth for this market. The HPC cluster market share continues to show explosive growth, representing over 50% of the HPTC revenues in the first quarter of 2006.

Microsofts entry into high-performance computing comes at a time when enterprises have the options for powerful computing capabilities in the form of multi core processors, standards-based, high-speed interconnects and ubiquitous x64 (64-bit x86) architecture. Customer demand for HPC is being driven by a combination of factors relating to increased processor performance per compute node, low acquisition price per node, and the overall price-performance of compute clusters.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in

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