As the size of your HPC cluster increases, so do the complexities for managing that cluster. RedLine guides you through the selection, installation, and optimization of your HPC cluster along with the sophisticated tools that manage clusters through every phase of your system’s life cycle. We remain vendor-neutral to provide you with objective expert guidance.
We’ll help you integrate specific products and technologies into your existing environment, applying our RedLine Performance Methodology to ensure your requirements and expectations are met. And we’ll work closely with your staff to avoid unplanned interruptions to operations.
Cluster Management Tools. Choosing the right cluster management tool – the starting point to building and operating your cluster is a complex process. It’s paramount to measure your system requirements against the capabilities of the tool under consideration and your staff’s ability to manage it. RedLine is seasoned in selecting and implementing the perfect cluster computing management tool for your needs from among the many choices in the marketplace, including Bright Cluster Manager, xCAT, HPCM, Confluent, and many others.
Job Schedulers. The HPC cluster’s job scheduler is the focal point of user access to the cluster. Proper setup and management of complex schedulers ensure that the appropriate compute resources are available, with the right configuration. RedLine has deep experience implementing and fine-tuning job schedulers such as Slurm, PBS Pro, LSF and others.
Parallel file systems and cluster management software are technologies that RedLine is frequently called upon to help integrate. These complex systems require hard-to-find senior experts to deploy and resolve issues and optimize capabilities. We provide proven subject matter expertise for Lustre and IBM’s General Parallel File System (GPFS). RedLine staff members will work with you to define detailed requirements and objectively recommend, design, implement, and maintain parallel file systems. We’re uniquely positioned to apply in-depth expertise to parallel file system performance tuning, fully exploiting vendor-specific features relative to the balance of performance, price, and capacity.
System Monitoring. Robust system monitoring that goes beyond failure notification is crucial to optimal HPC operations. RedLine combines real-time monitoring with vital historic performance data to identify trends and ensure optimal system health and performance over time. RedLine has extensive installation and integration experience with systems monitoring tools such as Nagios, CheckMK, Xymon, Alerta and Grafana with Prometheus.
Baselining and Benchmarking. The importance of baseline performance metrics cannot be overstated. Without a measured baseline, performance expectations are based on speculation. Baselining a system includes running simple benchmarks such as network throughput tests, disk IOPs tests, and measuring end-to-end application performance. After the baseline has been established, baseline tests are re-executed prior to deploying new hardware or software, as well as before and after an upgrade or patch. With solid historical performance data, effective data visualization capabilities, and baselines and benchmarks, administrators are able to identify (and fix) problems much more quickly. RedLine is well versed in validating and and maintaining system performance using HPL, HPCG, STREAM, IOR and other application specific tools.
Cluster Management Tools.
Choosing the right cluster management tool – the starting point to building and operating your cluster is a complex process. It’s paramount to measure your system requirements against the capabilities of the tool under consideration and your staff’s ability to manage it. RedLine is seasoned in selecting and implementing the perfect cluster management tool for your needs from among the many choices in the marketplace, including Bright Cluster Manager, xCAT, HPCM, Confluent, and many others.
Job Schedulers.
The HPC cluster’s job scheduler is the focal point of user access to the cluster. Proper setup and management of complex schedulers ensure that the appropriate compute resources are available, with the right configuration. RedLine has deep experience implementing and fine-tuning job schedulers such as Slurm, PBS Pro, LSF and others.
Parallel file systems
and cluster management software are technologies that RedLine is frequently called upon to help integrate. These complex systems require hard-to-find senior experts to deploy and resolve issues and optimize capabilities. We provide proven subject matter expertise for Lustre and IBM’s General Parallel File System (GPFS). RedLine staff members will work with you to define detailed requirements and objectively recommend, design, implement, and maintain parallel file systems. We’re uniquely positioned to apply in-depth expertise to parallel file system performance tuning, fully exploiting vendor-specific features relative to the balance of performance, price, and capacity.
System Monitoring.
Robust system monitoring that goes beyond failure notification is crucial to optimal HPC operations. RedLine combines real-time monitoring with vital historic performance data to identify trends and ensure optimal system health and performance over time. RedLine has extensive installation and integration experience with systems monitoring tools such as Nagios, CheckMK, Xymon, Alerta and Grafana with Prometheus.
Baselining and Benchmarking.
The importance of baseline performance metrics cannot be overstated. Without a measured baseline, performance expectations are based on speculation. Baselining a system includes running simple benchmarks such as network throughput tests, disk IOPs tests, and measuring end-to-end application performance. After the baseline has been established, baseline tests are re-executed prior to deploying new hardware or software, as well as before and after an upgrade or patch. With solid historical performance data, effective data visualization capabilities, and baselines and benchmarks, administrators are able to identify (and fix) problems much more quickly. RedLine is well versed in validating and and maintaining system performance using HPL, HPCG, STREAM, IOR and other application specific tools.
On Demand HPC Support
Use RedLine’s On-Demand HPC Support to cost-effectively supplement your staff with our peerless team of HPC systems experts.
RedLine’s On-Demand HPC Support includes:
- Routine support, such as Tier 2 Help Desk, addressing user issues, and managing break/fix items.
- After-hours support, including 24/7 systems monitoring and operations support.
- Regular system maintenance, security patching, and upgrades.
- Assistance in incorporating and managing mature practices to ensure optimal performance, functionality, and uptime.
- Consultation on upgrades, design, migration to the cloud, and data center co-location.
- Augmentation of in-house IT staff during busy periods or staff absence.
RedLine offers multi-vendor support to both HPC and non-HPC organizations. We maintain relationships with multiple data center operators for co-location purposes, as well as large and small cloud providers. Our staff of experienced systems engineers and integrators will work with you to find the right balance of cost savings, performance, and security. We apply our operational support experience to consistently ensure rapid problem resolution, system stability, and optimal performance.
