Exemplar architectural concept - to be adopted by all major vendors

Mannheim, 21-6-97 According to Dr. Frank Baetke, European manager high-performance computing at Hewlett-Packard, the three major HPC-manufacturers now all have adopted the SMP/NUMA based architecture, first employed in 1994 in HP's Exemplar (at that time introduced as the Convex SPP1xxx series). He also commented on the sale to Liechtenstein, which brings this small country on top of the list in terms of 'supercomputer-density'.

Primeur: what are your main conclusions from this Mannheimer Supercomputer Conference - especially looking at the key players ?
Baetke: This year's Mannheim Supercomputer Conference showed the consolidation of High-Performance Computing. Consolidation at the corporate level and at the architectural level.

At the corperate level, only three major players are left, as is shown by the conference programme and illustrated by the new TOP500 list: SGI/Cray, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. They are the only ones that provide a whole range of machines that scale from workstations up to the very high-end based on the same processor and operating system.

Primeur: But are the Japanese vendors still not very present in the high-end?
Baetke: The Japanese manufacturers have quite a different philosophy. They still use proprietary technologies to design CPUs: one favours vector shared memory, one is strong in vectors but with distributed memory, and one provides a proprietary MPP system. All more or less lack a software compatible entry-level at the workstations and/or small server level. Time will tell how big the niche of these systems will be, especially with next generation RISC-technology adapting more and more 'vector-like' concepts.

Primeur: And the newcomer in the TOP500, SUN?
Baetke: SUN has established itself, but only in the low and mid range. They expressed their strategy to stay in that range, again, here in Mannheim.

At the architectural level, we see that the major players have now all formally decided to follow the architectural model, pursued for the first time already in 1994 in the first Exemplar now going into its second generation with the S- and X-class.

This architecture consists of a global shared memory with SMP like building blocks, connected by a coherent high-performance interconnect. Even the company which has always declared a pure distributed memory architecture as the de facto standard (IBM with its workstation cluster-like SP-2) told the audience here in Mannheim that their future architecture is basically following the Exemplar line with SMP-like building blocks which will eventually include a globally shared address space.

So the three major players, according to the number of entries in the TOP500 list, SGI/Cray (201) , BM (71), and Hewlett-Packard (67) all follow the same approach. The benefits for the user, using this SMP based NUMA model, is that it applies in principle, to all of these platforms. The other architectures will probably be made obsolete over time.

Primeur: Do the manufacturers still make any money in the high-end?
Baetke: The "sweet spot" with the biggest business potential in the market space is surely at the level between 8 and 32 processors. This is shown by all the statistics and is also visible in the TOP500 list.

But we believe that for development of new technologies we also have to invest in the high-end, as a start of a "technology cascade". That is why we invested heavily to provide systems that currently scale up to 512 processors. The biggest machine sold thusfar is a 256 processor X-class Exemplar being installed at CalTech. We believe it is essential to keep compatibility with workstations and small servers even at that top level.

Primeur: HP sold a machine to Liechtenstein, one of the smallest countries in the world. Can you comment on that?
We are, of course, very pleased that a 32 processor Exemplar X-Class pushed the Fürstentum Liechtenstein to the top of the list in terms of supercomputers per inhabitant - it's 'supercomputer density' now exceeds even the United States. The machine will be used by a company which designs electro-mechanical equipment, like drilling machines.

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