Showing posts with label procurement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procurement. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 July 2017

SC17 Tutorials - HPC cost models, investment cases and acquisitions

Following our successful HPC tutorials at SC16 and OGHPC17, I'm delighted to report that we've had three tutorials accepted for SC17 in Denver this November, all continuing our mission to provide HPC training opportunities for HPC people other than just programmers.

At SC17, we will be delivering these three tutorials:
  • [Sun 12th, am] "Essential HPC Finance: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Internal Funding, and Cost-Recovery Models"
  • [Sun 12th, pm] "Extracting Value from HPC: Business Cases, Planning, and Investment"
  • [Mon 13th, am] "HPC Acquisition and Commissioning"
In a last minute bit of co-ordination, Sharan Kalwani will be following these with his related tutorial "Data Center Design" on Mon 13th pm.

Are these tutorials any good?


The HPC procurement tutorial was successfully presented at SC13 (>100 attendees) and SC16 (~60 attendees). Feedback from the SC16 attendees was very positive: scored 4.6/5 overall and scored 2.9/3 for “recommend to a colleague.

The HPC finance tutorial was successfully presented at SC17 (~60 attendees) and at the Rice Oil & Gas HPC conference 2017 (~30 attendees). Feedback from the SC16 attendees was very positive: scored 4.3/5 overall and scored 2.7/3 for “recommend to a colleague.

The HPC business case tutorial is new for SC17.

What is the goal of the tutorials?


The tutorials provide an impartial, practical, non-sales focused guide to the business aspects of HPC facilities and services (including cloud), such as total cost of ownership, funding models, showing value and securing investing in HPC, and the process of purchasing and deploying a HPC system. All tutorials include exploration of the main issues, pros and cons of differing approaches, practical tips, hard-earned experience and potential pitfalls.

What is in the tutorials?


Essential HPC Finance Practice: Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Internal Funding, and Cost-Recovery Models
  • Calculating and using TCO models
  • Pros and cons of different internal cost recovery and funding models
  • Updated from the SC16 base, with increased consideration of cloud vs in-house HPC
Extracting Value from HPC: Business Cases, Planning, and Investment
  • Applicable to either a first investment or an upgrade of existing capability
  • Most relevant to organizations with a clear purpose (e.g., industry) or those with a clear service mission (e.g., academic HPC facilities)
  • Identifying the value, building a business case, engaging stakeholders, securing funding, requirements capture, market survey, strategic choices, and more
HPC Acquisition and Commissioning
  • Procurement process including RFP
  • Specify what you want, yet enable the suppliers to provide innovative solutions beyond the specification both in technology and in the price
  • Bid evaluation, benchmarks, clarification processes
  • Demonstrate to stakeholders that the solution selected is best value for money
  • Contracting, project management, commissioning, acceptance testing

Who are the tutors?


Me (Andrew Jones, @hpcnotes), Owen Thomas (Red Oak Consulting), and Terry Hewitt. We have been involved in numerous major HPC procurements and other strategic HPC projects since 1990, as service managers, bidders to funding agencies, as customers and as impartial advisors. We are all from the UK but have worked around the world and the tutorials will be applicable to HPC projects and procurements anywhere. The tutorials are based on experiences across a diverse set of real world cases in various countries, in private and public sectors.

What if you need even more depth?


These SC17 tutorials will deliver a lot of content in each half day. However, if you need more depth, or a fuller range of topics, or are looking for a CV step towards becoming a future HPC manager, then our joint TACC-NAG summer training institute is the right thing for you: "Where will future HPC leaders come from?"



Hope to see you at one (or more!) of our tutorials at SC17 this November in Denver.
@hpcnotes


Tuesday 17 June 2014

Secrets of the Supercomputers

These are revelations from inside the strange world of supercomputing centers. Nobody is pretending these are real stories. They couldn’t possibly be. Could they?

On one of my many long haul airplane plane journeys this year, I caught myself thinking about the strange things that go on inside supercomputer centers - and other parts of the HPC world. I thought it might be fun to poke at and mock such activities while trying to make some serious points.

Since the flight was a long one, I started writing ... and so "Secrets of the Supercomputers" was born.

You can find Episode 1 at HPC Wire today, touching on the topic of HPC procurement.

No offense to anyone intended. Gentle mocking maybe. Serious lessons definitely.

Take a look here for some serious comments on HPC procurement at the NAG blog.

Friday 25 May 2012

Looking ahead to ISC'12

I have posted my preview of ISC'12 Hamburg - the summer's big international conference for the world of supercomputing over on the NAG blog. I will be attending ISC'12, along with several of my NAG colleagues. My blog post discusses these five key topics:
  • GPU vs MIC vs Other
  • What is happening with Exascale?
  • Top 500, Top 10,
  • Tens of PetaFLOPS
  • Finding the advantage in software
  • Big Data and HPC 
Read more on the NAG blog ...

Monday 30 August 2010

Me on HPC 2

Things I have said (or have been attributed as saying - not always the same thing!) - some older interviews with me in various publications about HPC, multicore, etc ...


Successful Deployment at Extreme Scale: More than Just the Iron
The Exascale Report
August 2010, by John West

[full article requires subscription, extracts here are not complete, and are modified slightly to support that]

"cost of science, not just the cost of supercomputer ownership"

"lead time, and funding, to get the user community ready"

"spend a year or more selecting a machine and then deploy it as quickly as possible, makes it very difficult to build a community and get codes ready ahead of time"

"software must be viewed as part of the scientific instrument, in this case a supercomputer, that needs its own investment. High performance computing is really about the software; whatever hardware you are using is just an accelerator system."

"a machine is deployed and then obsolete within three years. And the users often have no idea what architecture is coming next. There is no real chance for planning, or a return on software development investment."

Thursday 18 June 2009

When supercomputing benchmarks fail to add up

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 18 June, 2009]

Using benchmarks to choose a supercomputer is more complex than just picking the fastest system ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2009/06/18/when-supercomputing-benchmarks-fail-to-add-up-39664193/

Thursday 5 February 2009

What to do if your supercomputing supplier fails

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 5 February, 2009]

High-performance computing providers often live on the edge — technologically and financially. But if your supplier fails, it need not be a disaster ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2009/02/05/what-to-do-if-your-supercomputing-supplier-fails-39610056/

Tuesday 16 December 2008

How to stand out in the supercomputing crowd

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 16 December, 2008]

High-performance computing's key business benefit may be to differentiate an organisation from its rivals, but that shouldn't rule out the use of commodity products ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2008/12/16/how-to-stand-out-in-the-supercomputing-crowd-39578009/

Thursday 14 August 2008

NAG Embarks on a New Business Venture

[Interview with me in HPCwire, August 14, 2008]

by John E. West, for HPCwire

... responding to changes in computing at both ends of the spectrum, [NAG] is positioning itself as the place to go, not just for shrink-wrapped libraries, but also for education and expertise in how to program in parallel, and even for expert advice on how to buy, build and run your own supercomputer. HPCwire talked to Andrew Jones, vice-president of HPC business at NAG, on what he has in mind for this new business and how he sees the future of HPC and parallel programming shaping up ...

http://www.hpcwire.com/features/NAG_Embarks_on_a_New_Business_Venture.html?viewAll=y