Comparison of Vendor Supplied Environmental Data Collection Mechanisms

Abstract

The high performance computing landscape is filled with diverse hardware components. A large part of understanding how these components compare to others is by looking at the various environmental aspects of these devices such as power consumption, temperature, etc. Thankfully, vendors of these various pieces of hardware have supported this by providing mechanisms to obtain this data. However, differences not only in the way this data is obtained but also the data which is provided is common between products. In this paper, we take a comprehensive look at the data which is available for the most common pieces of today's HPC landscape, as well as how this data is obtained and how accurate it is. Having surveyed these components, we compare and contrast them noting key differences as well as providing insight into what features future components should have.