HPC 101:  Introduction to High Performance Computing, History and Trends

Philip Murphy, Senior Director of Engineering, Qlogic Corporation

This session will focus on providing a perspective on the high performance computing market.  It will explore the origin of the requirement for specialized high performance computing solutions, and examine historical approaches to the problem.   Additionally, current trends in the market, leveraging high volume servers and low cost, high performance interconnects will be discussed.  The session will conclude with the examination of a modern high performance compute cluster example, identifying the major building blocks required to construct a complete solution.  

As a result of participating in this session, attendees will be able to:  

• Identify the market drivers that create the need to high performance computing solutions
  
• Examine the various approaches that have been taken to address the high performance computing requirements
  
• Analyze the current trend in modern high performance computing, centering on high performance computing clusters