HPC technology trends - an ARL MSRC perspective

The Army Research Laboratory Major Shared Resource Center (ARL MSRC) takes a proactive role in identifying new technologies and understanding how technology trends can be exploited to further the capabilities provided to Department of Defense (DoD) researchers and developers. Studying emerging technologies in not only processing, but in mass storage, visualization, networking, power and cooling is a key responsibility of the ARL MSRC´s expansion and analysis team. These trends must be constantly reviewed against the trends of customer requirements, as demonstrated by the requirements survey, actual usage trends and by direct communication with customers. Constant monitoring of usage and requirements trends compared and contrasted with industry technology trends leads to either the identification of opportunities (i.e. storage area networking) to improve the center´s ability to provide high performance computing (HPC) services or to the identification of challenges (e.g. the memory wall) that if not addressed can lead to large imbalances between center capabilities and customer requirements. We present preliminary findings and analyses of user requirements and usage trends and discuss technology advancements, trends and futures in the HPC community and their potential application at the ARL MSRC. User requirement projections over the coming years are examined, along with HPC technologies expected to not only meet these projections, but exceed them in a balanced, consistent manner.