HP (www.hp.com) is one of the leaders in HPC, featuring solutions delivering innovation, choice and performance to a growing number of HPC users around the world. We discussed a number of these solutions with Larry Ryan, director, grid strategy, worldwide financial services industry, HP.

WFS: Larry, how does HP see the continuing emergence of grid computing and virtualization technologies affecting the industry in the short-term?

LR: We see grid and virtualization as key technologies for financial institutions where accessible computing, timely information, market insight and accurate risk modeling are mission critical. Grid technologies facilitate the secure sharing of loosely coupled infrastructure and services across geographic and organizational boundaries. Virtualization helps organizations pool and share IT resources in a way that reduces costs, makes IT infrastructures more flexible and assures supply automatically meets demand. Both help financial services organizations do more with less, engage more resources to solve financial models and improve reaction time to new market events.

WFS: What approach is HP suggesting that firms wrap their arms around?

LR: We recommend a scale-out approach employing grid software on industry-standard technology that includes HP ProLiant and Integrity servers, based on Intel or AMD processors, running Linux or Microsoft Windows. This type of scale-out solution provides high-performance computing at a compelling price point. Grid middleware synthesizes these systems into a single, cohesive system that allows you to scale your models for speed and complexity.

Technologies such as multi-core processors, new interconnects like Infiniband and new financial models can quickly and easily be integrated into affordable, energy efficient, HPC solutions.

WFS: How would you characterize HP’s current range of offerings in the HPC space?

LR: Our HPC strategy is based around the Unified Cluster Portfolio (UCP), a family of integrated components designed to enable the creation of grid computing solutions that are high-performance, low risk and affordable.

UCP includes a range of individual servers, from small one- or two-processor systems to large SMPs, interconnects, storage, middleware and applications. With this modular approach, firms can start small and grow to address increasing demands with a single, cohesive, well-integrated compute platform.

WFS: With a number of firms beginning to aggressively pursue the other ‘green,’ energy consumption, where does HP stand?

LR: Power and cooling together are a major HP initiative as the industry becomes more aware that performance per watt is an important environmental issue and for total cost of ownership.

As you know, cooling high-performance systems consumes a lot of power. Our BladeSystem c-Class features innovative thermal logic technology that applies thermal controls to manage the enclosure’s power and cooling without compromising processing performance. For the first time, BladeSystem c-Class customers can minimize energy costs and environmental impact and ensure application availability with control efficiency at the component, enclosure and rack levels.

Power and cooling are shared among multiple servers in an enclosure and managed to ensure maximum efficiency of the power supplies and fans.

We also offer Static Smart Cooling, a service that models data centers to enable intelligent design of cooling distribution, and Dynamic Smart Cooling, which directs data center air conditioning where its needed most, reducing cooling costs by 25-40 percent.

WFS: How deeply has HP moved into the utility computing services solution space?

LR: We’ve delivered that solution for over 10 years, enabling customers to rapidly scale their onsite equipment capacity while paying for incremental resources as required. We also offer consulting and implementation services to design and deploy internal shared services utility solutions for customers worldwide.

Recognizing an emerging market need for ‘public’ utility computing, we introduced HP Flexible Computing Services in November 2005 and made capital investments in data centers and infrastructure, delivering best-in-class utility computing and storage services that customers can use and pay for with no long-term investment or commitment required.

These services, providing rapid access to HPC and storage capacity delivered remotely from highly secure, HP-managed data centers, have been deployed by leading firms and ISVs to solve compute-intensive, risk management and actuarial problems.