Dell has unveiled sweeping advancements to its industry-leading high performance computing (HPC) portfolio. These advances include innovative new systems designed to simplify mainstream adoption of HPC and data analytics in research, manufacturing and genomics. Dell also unveiled expansions to its HPC Innovation Lab and showcased next-generation technologies including the Intel Omni-Path Fabric.
HPC is becoming increasingly critical to how organisations of all sizes innovate and compete. Many organisations lack the in-house expertise to configure, build and deploy an HPC system without losing focus on their core science, engineering and analytic missions. As an example, according to the National Centre for Manufacturing Sciences, 98 percent of all products will be designed digitally by 2020, yet 95% of the centre’s 300 000 manufacturing companies have little or no HPC expertise.
“HPC is no longer a tool only for the most sophisticated researchers. We’re taking what we’ve learned from working with some of the most advanced, sophisticated universities and research institutions and customising that for delivery to mainstream enterprises,” says Jim Ganthier, vice-president and GM: Engineered Solutions and Cloud at Dell. “As the leading provider of systems in this space, Dell continues to break down barriers and democratise HPC. We’re seeing customers in even more industry verticals embrace its power.”
Dell announced the new Dell HPC System Portfolio, a family of HPC and data analytics solutions combining the flexibility of custom systems with the simplicity, reliability and value of a preconfigured, factory-built system that includes:
* Simplified design, configuration, and ordering in a matter of hours instead of weeks;
* Domain-specific design that’s designed and tuned by Dell engineers and domain experts for specific science, engineering and analytics workloads using flexible industry-standard building blocks; and
* Fully tested and validated systems by Dell engineering with a single point of hardware support and a wide range of additional service options.
New application-specific Dell HPC System Portfolio offerings include:
* Dell HPC System for Genomic Data Analysis is designed to meet the needs of genomic research organisations to enable cost-effective bioinformatics centres delivering results and identifying treatments in clinically relevant timeframes while maintaining compliance and protecting confidential data. The platform is a result of key learnings from Dell’s relationship with Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to help clinical researchers and doctors expand the reach and impact of the world’s first Food and Drug Administration-approved precision medicine trial for paediatric cancer. TGen has been able to improve outcomes for more patients by creating targeted treatments at least one week faster than they could be accomplished previously.
* Dell HPC System for Manufacturing is designed for customers running complex manufacturing design simulations using workstations, clusters or both. Applicable use cases include Finite Element Analysis for structural analysis using ANSYS Mechanical & Computational Fluid Dynamics for predicting fluid behaviour in designs utilising ANSYS Fluent or CD-adapco STAR-CCM+.
* Dell HPC System for Research is designed as a foundation, or reference architecture, for baseline research systems and numerous applications involving complex scientific analysis. This standard cluster configuration can be used as a starting point for Dell’s customers and systems engineers to quickly develop research systems that match the unique needs of research customers requiring systems for a wide variety of research agendas.