Panel - Ethernet vs. HPC: Can the hyperscale ethernet data center handle all workloads?

Abstract

Summary form only given, as follows. A record of the panel discussion was not made available for publication as part of the conference proceedings. Hyperscale ethernet data centers (HEDCs) based on pure ethernet switching have come to dominate both the market and the conversation, and many think they are all that is necessary. But for many years specialized designs for HPC have survived, though these specialized designs seem increasingly relegated to fewer and fewer special cases. Some think this will only continue, and the low cost, pervasiveness, and simplicity of a single fabric will result in HEDCs being 'so good enough' that special technology for HPC will no longer be needed. Others disagree and claim that HEDCs enjoy generally uniform and static workloads that do not fit the profiles of machine learning and HPC applications. They cite technologies like PCIexpress fabrics that are infiltrating HEDCs to augment ethernet with capabilities that ethernet simply cannot provide and that are needed in both the massive HEDCs and smaller versions of same, including specialized campus DCs or clusters and those deployed at the mobile edge for mobile edge computing. In the MEC scenario, media, security, machine learning, and IOT are among the new applications driving the convergence of HPC and HEDC. The panel will debate these opposing viewpoints and will speculate on whether specialized HPC DCs and general HEDCs will converge, diverge, or continue in separate parallel worlds.