ExaNeSt - Holistic Evaluation

Abstract

This deliverable describes the holistic evaluation of the platform. Why is this needed? Because the complexity of an exascale HPC system requires more than a simple integration between different components, it is instead a complete and complex merging of different technologies with the aim of achieving the maximum efficiency of the entire system within the resource limitations of ExaNeSt. Applications have also a crucial role in this process, as the system must be usable in real cases, by real users, and not just ready for benchmarks. Consequently the evaluation of the performance cannot be limited to single parts (network, storage, FPGA, etc.) but instead the entire hardware and software components must be considered as an integrated entity. In this document we highlight how the different software and hardware components of ExaNeSt integrate to provide a single HPC platform (the ExaNeSt testbed) with maximum performance for applications, with converged virtualization and Data-Analytics and high energy efficiency achieved.