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Tag: high performance computing

PSSC Labs Announces CBeST Cluster Management Toolkit Software Update Version 6.0

By marketing@site-a.com

LAKE FOREST, CALIF., March 2, 2022  — PSSC Labs, a developer of high performance computing (HPC) and big data computing solutions, announced today an updated release CBeST Cluster Management Toolkit®.  Software Version 6.0 update includes kernel optimizations, custom scripts and open source tools integrated, optimized and customized for your specific PowerWulf® ZXR1+ HPC Cluster hardware and applications.

Version 6.0 includes:

Updated OS Support
  • Ubuntu® 20.04 LTS
  • Red Hat® 8.0
  • CentOS Linux 7.0.
Support for Containers Using Singularity Software

Includes PSSC Labs’ new SimpleAI Framework. Singularity, a cross-platform, open-source computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization also known as containerization. With Singularity containers, developers can work in reproducible environments of their choosing and design, and these complete environments can easily be copied and executed on other platforms – helping bring the HPC and Enterprise computing worlds together.

SimpleAI Framework

SimpleAI Framework enables users to speed up their Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning workloads. SimpleAI includes the following tools:

  • Tensorflow
  • PyTorch
  • Caffe
  • Keras, CUDA
  • cuDNN
  • Rapids AI
Refinements to Existing Features

Improvements to these popular features include:

  • Message Passing Interface
  • Portable Batch Schedulers (including Slurm)
  • Compilers (including Basic GNU development tools and Intel OneAPI Toolkit)
  • Ganglia Hardware Monitoring Utilities
  • Clonezilla Node Imaging and Replication Utility
  • Remote Management (via Intel Platform Management Interface)

“With the addition of Singularity and SimpleAI Framework, maintaining OS compatibility and continuing to finetune our existing features, CBeST 6.0 is our best version yet” said Alex Lesser, President, PSSC Labs.

Availability

CBeST Cluster Management Toolkit Version 6.0 is included with all outgoing PSSC HPC systems and available for existing systems in the field. PSSC Labs also addresses distinct customer requirements by offering customized refinements of this software toolkit.  Go here [link] to learn more.

About PSSC Labs

For over 25 years PSSC Labs has provided custom, on-premise high performance computing (HPC) systems designed to meet unique enterprise computing challenges. PSSC Labs offers HPC AI deep learning solutions and other big data solutions and delivers relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership – all backed with industry-leading US-based support.

All products are designed and built at the company’s headquarters in Lake Forest, California.

PSSC Labs Announces New CBeST Cluster Management Software Stack v5 Release

By marketing@site-a.com

LAKE FOREST, CALIF., October 13, 2020 — PSSC Labs, a developer of high performance computing (HPC) and big data computing solutions, announces today that a new release of CBeST Cluster Management v 5.0 Software Stack will be available. The newest version of CBeST will add support for the latest Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® / CentOS Linux® 8.0 operating system and provide enhanced support for advanced technologies from Intel®, AMD® and NVIDIA®. CBeST will support bursting to cloud environments including Microsoft® Azure, Amazon® AWS and Google® Compute.

PSSC Labs continues to develop the most full featured cluster management software in the industry. CBeST is a complete cluster management package comprised of kernel optimizations, custom scripts and open source tools that are elegantly integrated, optimized and customized for your specific PowerWulf HPC Cluster hardware and applications. PSSC Labs provides support for CBeST at no additional cost. Below are the components included with CBeST.

Key features:

  • Support for Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® / CentOS Linux® 8.0
  • Operating System and BIOS performance optimizations tailored by CPU type (AMD®/Intel®)
  • Support for both Intel®, AMD®, NVIDIA® GPUs
  • NVIDIA® CUDA SDK software preinstalled
  • Multiple MPI platforms and versions installed by default
  • Environment Modules configuration. This will allow user environment customization to switch between different default MPI/application/compiler versions/environments.
  • Support for Cloud Bursting to Microsoft® Azure, Amazon® AWS and Google® Compute
  • Support for connecting to different parallel file systems including Gluster, Lustre, and Ceph
  • Support for Mellanox® InfiniBand up to 200 Gb/s and Intel® Omni-Path up to 100 Gb/s
  • Support for high speed ethernet standards 10/25/40/100 Gb/s.
  • Enhanced usability and management
  • Continued improvements on the build and use of slurm batch scheduler
  • Slurm customization, including support for GPUs and Quality of Service prioritizing
  • Slurm will allow support for bursting cloud deployment

PSSC Labs clusters are powering a whole new generation of research and business innovation. Their cluster management software stack is designed to automate the process of building and managing high performance clusters, so customers can eliminate the complexity of cluster management and attain ultimate flexibility. Learn more at www.site-a.com.

About PSSC Labs

For technology powered visionaries with a passion for challenging the status quo, PSSC Labs is the answer for hand-crafted HPC and Big Data computing solutions that deliver relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership. We are true innovators offering high performance computing solutions to solve the world’s most demanding problems. For 25+ years, organizations of all sizes and from a variety of industries rely on PSSC Labs’ computing systems. We are proud to support many departments within the United States government, Fortune 500 companies, and small and medium-sized businesses.

All products are designed and built at the company’s headquarters in Lake Forest, California.

HPC Technology Strategies for Fighting COVID

By marketing@site-a.com

We’re amid unprecedented times — COVID-19 has forced government officials to shut down schools, businesses, and public areas across the world. Thousands upon thousands have fallen ill with hospital workers worrying about reaching maximum capacity and depleting supply inventory. The amount of infections are projected to rise substantially each day, marking no end in sight for this worldwide pandemic. 

Hospitals, health care organizations and research companies are working around the clock to find proper drug treatments and vaccines to combat the virus. With so much on the line, it’s imperative that our country’s leading care givers and researches have access to the best resources available to perform life saving research. The obvious resources are those needed at the front line including ventilators, N95 masks, masks, gloves, etc.  But the not so obvious resources are just as vitally important.  These including high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence and big data platforms. Below are just a few of the many ways that advanced technology tools and HPC can be used in the fight against COVID-19.

3 Technologies Taking On COVID-19

  1. Modeling and Visualization.  The real fight against this killer virus will be won with data.  The need for real time analysis of extremely large data sets has never been greater.  Our ability to ingest, interpret and visualize data in order to see what is happening at both the microscopic and global levels can substantially flatten the curve which will ultimately lead to saving lives. Recently one of our clients presented a model of the infection and death rate in Hawaii.  His models were so accurate that he is predicting within 1% margin of error at this point.  Government agencies can use these extremely exact data models to prepare hospitals and care workers.  It can help ensue there are enough resources in place before things are out of control.  Better prediction models equals saved lives.
  2. Bioinformatics. In order to understand what we are fighting we must first be able to sequence the virus’ genome.  This is actually very simple to so since the field of genomics has been in place for nearly 15 years.  Using HPC platforms and bioinformatics tools, research organizations have begun extensive sequencing of COVID-19. Being able to accurately identify the viral genome enables researchers to understand how it has become so successful in attacking us and spreading across the globe. Understanding the virus itself is imperative to discovering how to defeat it. Scientist can see where the virus bonds to the host cells and replicates.  If we are able to disrupt the bonding and replication then we have a fighting chance to defeat COVID-19.
  3. Computational Chemistry.  Organizations working on drug treatment are likely utilizing computational chemistry — a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulations to solve chemical problems. With this type of work, organizations can test the effects of specific drug or drug combinations on the virus in an effort to identify which drugs render the virus useless or ineffective. If the virus is prevented from attaching to a host or from replicating, researchers would catapult closer to an effective vaccine. 

Our world is in the fight of a lifetime — something no one has seen or lived through before. It’s more important than ever that hospitals, health care agencies and life science organizations of all sizes are able to do the work they need to do to protect and save lives. PSSC Labs is proud to support many organizations working to defeat COVID-19.  For these researchers having immediate access to the on-premise platforms they need can not be overstated. While other companies wait for cloud resources to become available, organizations that made the right decision to invest in their own technology platforms will lead us to the cure.

Supercomputing for Design & Engineering SMBs

By marketing@site-a.com

Supercomputing is most commonly thought of as a tool only for the largest government agencies, top commercial companies, and most prestigious universities — not your everyday small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The focus of supercomputing is typically on the largest systems, which scale well beyond many thousands of processor cores. Many SMBs believe supercomputing capabilities to be well beyond their reach, but nothing could be further form the truth. SMBs need a competitive advantage to obtain government and commercial contracts, and that advantage is a powerful, scalable, high performance supercomputing platform.

Over the past 12 months, interest and deployment of high performance computing clusters at SMBs performing computational fluid dynamics (CFD), finite element analysis (FEA) and structural engineering work have trended significantly upward. Without HPC systems, the work these organizations are accomplishing would be nearly impossible. But with the right systems, it could be the lifeline to their organizational success. “Supercomputing is not just for the large and powerful organizations,” says Alex Lesser, Vice President of PSSC Labs. “Supercomputing is an accessible tool for everyone. Small and Medium Businesses need to leverage these tools to ensure their success, and it does not have to be costly or intimidating.”

PSSC Labs works closely with several trusted leaders in the design and engineering space. These organizations develop state-of-the-art physics-based models for test programs, modeling and simulation analysis solutions for highly dynamic events and reactivity of energetic materials, and much more. Many of our clients also design simulation software in multiple areas of physics, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD), aero and hydro acoustics, and more. The technology these best-of-breed design and engineering firms have developed are applicable to many areas of interests to scientists, engineers, technologists, and educators. We’re proud to support game-changing organizations with the necessary HPC hardware systems they need to build the best of the best, while giving them immediate, frontend access to a variety of CFD applications, including Ansys Fluent, Star CCM, CFD++, and OpenFOAM, as well as Finite Element Analysis (FAE) applications, like Abaqus FEA, COMSOL Multiphysics and SimScale.

POWERWULF ZXR1+ HPC CLUSTER

Starter configuration for under $100k

  • 200 Intel or AMD Processor Cores
  • 4 GB of Memory Per Processor Core
  • 100 Gbps High Speed Network
    (Intel Omnipath or Mellanox Infiniband)
  • 10 TB High Performance Flash Storage
  • 40 TB Long Term / Secondary Storage
  • CBeST Cluster Management Toolkit
    • Linux Cluster Operating System
    • Message Passing Libraries
    • Batch Scheduled
  • Complete 3 Year Service Level Agreement

engineering hpc cluster

While some SMBs might be hesitant to deploy an on-premise HPC platform due to the lack of an internal IT department or perceived level of complexity, these concerns are easily put to rest when partnering with the right partner. PSSC Labs’ goal is to deliver the most turn-key, highest performance, head-ache free HPC experience possible. Our PowerWulf ZXR1+ Clusters include all necessary hardware, software, and networking integrated by 20+ year HPC experts. “We are very proud of our 57 step testing and integration process, which is considered one of the industry’s most rigorous,” begins Larry Lesser, PSSC Labs Chief Technology Officer. “The results of this painstaking process are evident with a record of never delivering a DOA system and a consistently proven 99.99% system uptime.”  PSSC Labs stands firmly behind their product with a complete hardware and software service level agreement for up to five years. Because PSSC Labs is both the manufacturer of the hardware and developer of system software, SMBs have one phone number to call for immediate access to knowledgeable support.

Cloud providers and brokers will continue to try scaring SMBs into believing that they are incapable of supporting an on-premise HPC solution. They may argue the merits of using offerings from Amazon, Microsoft and Google will save companies significant cost, offer superior performance and greater scalability, but they’re wrong. SMBs in the Design & Engineering space are comprised of very intelligent and experienced engineers who can evaluate the numbers on their own and are not easily swayed. Companies who choose the cloud over on-premise models are accepting ever-expanding monthly bills, loss of control and governance, and lower security, while allowing their data to be completely at the mercy of a third party. With the threat of cyber attacks ever-looming, putting critical and confidential data on the cloud is possibly one of the most irresponsible things SMBs could do. A quick read of the “Cloud Hopper” investigation by the Wall Street Journal should serve as a stark warning.

More and more SMBs are deploying HPC systems than ever before. On-premise, high-performance supercomputers are well within the grasp of design & engineering organizations of all sizes. SMBs need to utilize these tools to develop new products, win more contracts and push their businesses forward.

Top Tips to Improving Your System Administration Skills

By marketing@site-a.com

You Envision the Future

LAKE FOREST, CALIF., SEPT 12, 2019 — PSSC Labs, a developer of custom High Performance Computing and Big Data computing solutions today shares their top tips for improving your system administration skills.

At PSSC Labs, our mission is to deliver reliable, high performance turnkey platforms that help organizations like yours perform necessary data tasks without giving up control of your data.  That means keeping your system administration skills up-to-date is more important than ever! Of course, we’re always here to help you should you ever encounter any issues. In fact, you can contact our Support line at any time and we will be happy to assist you. But just to give you a little boost, we’ve outlined the top five support issues that on-premise model users encounter, and what to do if it happens to you.

Machine Not Powering On

PSSC Labs produces turnkey platforms, so they’re ready to be plugged in and get going upon delivery. Should you ever notice that one of your machines isn’t powering on, the first thing you should check is power supply. Verify that the power supply is receiving power from the source by verifying that the power connectors are securly plugged in on both ends.

If this doesn’t work, try a new power port on the PDF and then move on to a new power cable. If your machine still does not power on you can try using a power supply from your spare parts kit (if a spare parts kit was provided with your order) or from another working machine.  Machines with faulty memory can also exhibit this type of behavior, so shuffling or re-seating the memory is also worth trying. 

Machine Has Crashed or Rebooted

On-premise models can crash or reboot for various reasons. They’re often accompanied by BMC System Event Log messages.  Start by checking the output of the command ‘ipmitool sel list’ and check “/var/log/messages” for errors correlating to the date / time of the crash.

Updating your machine’s BIOS to the latest version is recommended as well, as it can fix crashing systems as well as improve the machine’s overall performance.  Verify that the CPUs are not overheating by checking the “sensors” command while the machine is under load.  Faulty memory can also cause crashes, so re-seating or shuffling memory can help to resolve these issues as well.  The causes of system crashes are sometimes hard to pin down, so do not hesitate to contact the PSSC Labs support team for troubleshooting assistance.

Software Support

PSSC Labs solutions often come pre-installed with multiple software applications, ranging from job submission software to parallel computing platforms, from weather modeling to data analysis.

Many of these packages are third party applications and not created by PSSC Labs, so if you ever have an issue with pre-loaded software, it’s recommended to first contact the software developers. If you still need assistance afterwards, contact the PSSC Labs support staff who can promptly assist you further.

Machine is Reporting Hard Drive/RAID Errors

This error is sometimes challenging for even those with years of experience and expert administration skills. Whenever your hard drive fails, your server’s data is at risk.  If you see errors indicating a possible issue with one of your hard drives, a PSSC Labs support technician can assist you with checking the drive’s built in SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data, which will show the drive’s health and indicate whether or not it needs to be replaced.  It’s possible that the drive is healthy and there is another underlying issue which needs to be remedied, so please contact PSSC Labs should you encounter this error.

Machine is Reporting Memory/CPU Errors

PSSC Labs servers come equipped with large amounts of memory and speedy CPUs. When issues occur with these components, users will often see slow / degraded system performance accompanied by MCE (Machine Check Error) messages.  You can contact PSSC Labs and provide these messages to a PSSC Labs support technician who can assist you with determining which memory DIMM or CPU the error is coming from.  Memory can be easily replaced, whereas handling CPUs is an extremely delicate process — one that we recommend avoiding unless absolutely necessary. Often times MCE messages can be resolved by simply reseating or shuffling the memory around.

About PSSC Labs 

For technology powered visionaries with a passion for challenging the status quo, PSSC Labs is the answer for hand-crafted HPC and Big Data computing solutions that deliver relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership.  

 We are true innovators offering high performance computing solutions to solve the world’s most demanding problems. For 25+ years, organizations of all sizes and from a variety of sectors rely on PSSC Labs’ computing systems. We are proud to support many departments within the United States government, Fortune 500 companies, as well as small and medium-sized businesses.  

All products are designed and built at the company’s headquarters in Lake Forest, California.