Amazon launches HPC service in the cloud

Article

Amazon launches HPC service in the cloud

Carl Brooks, Technology Writer
Amazon Web Services has taken another step on competitors with a cheap high-performance computing (HPC) service that may bring research scientists and HPC geeks into cloud computing.

For $1.60 per hour, the Cluster Compute Instances, or cc1.4xlarge, offer:

  • 23 GB of memory
  • 33.5 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon X5570, quad-core "Nehalem" architecture)
  • 1690 GB of instance storage
  • 64-bit platform
  • 10 Gigabit Ethernet

It won't even be AWS' most expensive instance, which is the High-Memory Quadruple Extra-Large at $2.40 per hour.

Amazon users already in awe of new instance
Reaction has been swift. Rob Gillen, a researcher and developer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, said colleagues have already calculated what the new instance could mean to them.

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    When you register, my team of editors will also send you alerts about public, private and hybrid cloud computing as well as other related technologies.

    Margie Semilof, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchCloudComputing.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchCloudComputing.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

More on HPC in the cloud:
SGI unveils monster HPC cloud, but is the price right?

Virtualization firm pushes HPC towards the cloud

"One of the computational biologists here just noted that his department could replace their cluster with an [AWS] cluster compute for $208 per hour," he said on Twitter.

Amazon says that the new instances differ from standard AWS offerings in more ways than one. First, ccc1.4xlarges run on a cluster that is all new, top-of-the-line hardware built to operate like a traditional grid computing environment.

It's only to be found in Amazon's Ashburn, Va. data center, and Amazon says users will get "full bisection 10 Gbps between instances" if they run more than one instance. They are also disclosing the CPU model so HPC users can tune their Linux cluster operating systems appropriately, something you don't get with regular Amazon EC2.

Supercomputer users should not get greedy just yet, however, as AWS limits you to eight cc1.4xlarges at a time. Still, HPC use cases on Amazon have already been documented. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven, New York demonstrated the ability of EC2 to run clusters effectively last year. In fact, computer scientist Kate Keahy said her colleagues' favorite after-dinner pastime was to pull out napkins and calculate their cluster cost on Amazon.

Carl Brooks is the Technology Writer at SearchCloudComputing.com. Contact him at cbrooks@techtarget.com.


Join the conversationComment

Share
Comments

    Results

    Contribute to the conversation

    All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.
    Back to top