Delivering Excellence and Innovation in Advanced

Computing

Introduction

•  Founded in 1991 – Headquarters in Bloomington, MN – Office in Reston, VA

•  Core team of professionals – System Analysts and Architects – Broad experiences with challenging problems

•  Focused on technology – Performance-based Professional Services – HPC computation, storage & networking

•  UNIX, Linux and Windows

Professional Services

•  Instrumental delivers performance – Specializing in helping customers achieve a

sustainable, competitive advantage – Our Mission - “To deliver excellence and

innovation in advanced computing environments”

•  With proven capabilities – Computation, storage, networking and usability – Architecture, design and integration services

•  Performance management •  System analysis and optimization •  Modeling and simulation

Instrumental Expertise

•  Complex Challenges – Exploding costs & tighter budgets – Liability and reputation issues

•  Rigid Requirements – Not always performance based

•  Control and usability

•  Scalable Solutions – CPUs, memory, I/O and networking

•  10,000s of processors •  100s of TB/sec for the file system •  10s of Petabytes in the file system

Vendor Neutral

•  We do not resell anything – Hardware or Software

•  Nor are we compensated – No finder’s fees – No commissions

•  Direct support of many agencies – Trusted partner

•  Vendors respect us and sometimes fear us !

•  Support for Prime contractors – Sometimes we are asked to be the integrators

for complex architectures

Global Relationships

•  US Government – HPC Modernization Office – Defense Community –  Intelligence Community – Library of Congress

•  Vendors –  Imation, Corp. – Sun Microsystems, Inc. – Seagate, Inc. – And others…

Why Instrumental?

•  Excellent Reputation – Highly talented people – Known on a world-wide basis – Trusted partner

•  Cleared facility –  Access elsewhere –  Special access clearances

– Key relationships •  End Users •  Vendors

•  Vendor Neutrality – Delivering unbiased objectivity

Fact Based Decisions

•  Performance –  It is never fast enough

•  More and More Data – Double digit growth rates

•  RAS – Reliability, availability & serviceability

•  Technology – What claims should you believe?

•  Costs – Tight budgets

Cost RAS

Performance

Balanced Computing

Delivering Performance

•  Performance Engineering – Maximizing investments in H/W and S/W

•  Systems and applications performance analysis •  Benchmarking and optimization •  Capacity planning

•  Systems Design & Management – Reliability – Availability – Serviceability – Reduced costs

Delivering Performance

•  Modeling & Simulation – Predictive performance analysis

•  Capacity planning – Architectural validation

•  Design and procurement risk reduction

•  Custom Development – Kernel development

•  IRIX, Solaris & UXP/V – Driver development

•  HIPPI & FC-AL – HPC file systems

•  US Government, LSC/Sun, Fujitsu, Cray & SGI

Delivering Performance

•  Scientific Visualization – Hardware Upgrades

•  Needs assessment •  Vendor offerings

– Software Upgrades •  General packages •  Training

– Visual Collaboration •  Immersadesk™ •  PowerWalls •  Caves™ •  Networking •  Security

Instrumental’s Approach

•  Architecture •  SMP, PVP or MPP? •  SAN, NAS or Direct Attached storage? •  RAID or JBOD?

•  Performance & Scalability – Systems & applications characterization – Capacity planning

•  Availability – Backup, restore and disaster recovery

•  Budgets

Instrumental’s Approach

•  Specifications – Define the requirements

•  Performance •  Functionality •  Budget Limitations

•  Simulation – Physical limitations dictate simulation

•  Go beyond what can be done in a lab •  Evaluate proposed solutions •  Evaluate enhancements •  Influence future products

Instrumental’s Approach

•  Emulation – Characterization of systems & applications

•  Testing the limits thru benchmarking and analysis – Subsystem emulation – Proof of concept

•  Validation – Proving the model correct – Establishes known reference point – Extend model beyond existing configuration

•  Integration

Instrumental’s Services

•  System Analysis – Complete workload, performance and utilization

analysis of systems, storage and networking •  Performance Management

– Anticipates performance based on trends identified from separate analyses

•  System Optimization – Tuned to perform at highest capability

•  System Management – A rational and comprehensive program

Instrumental’s Services

•  Modeling & Simulation – Questions about sizing, performance and

scaling can be analyzed and answered from a number of perspectives

•  Benchmarking & Evaluation – Our vendor independence equips our clients

with an unbiased resource •  Capacity Planning

– Effective capacity planning requires flexible, accurate system and workload models

Instrumental’s Services

•  Project Management •  Detailed Installation Plans

– H/W & S/W component lists – Detailed diagrams

•  Installation Services – Configuration – Problem resolution – Performance optimization – CONOPS (Concept of Operations)

•  On-going Support

Boeing Project

•  Hired by The Boeing Company – Architect the ground solution – Quarterback the integration team

•  Requirements –  I/O

•  Real time data capture & archive – Computational demands

•  Sustained TFLOPS – COTS solution

•  Limited budget – High availability

Sonora Project

•  Instrumental - “Chief Architect” – Major defense contractor is the Prime – Sun awarded the integration contract – On-site Technical Project Engineer

•  Sub-contractor to STK

•  Leverage the Boeing experience – Leverage critical relationships – Architect “new” solutions

•  Leadville & Sun Cluster – Overcome new issues

•  QFS/SANergy with AIX & IRIX

Recent Engagements

•  DoD HPCMO – Chenega Federal Systems

•  Architecture & Design – Computation

»  TI-0X Benchmarks –  Storage

» Multi-site storage architecture – Workload Management and Job Scheduling

•  NAVOCEANO – Disaster Recovery Project

Recent Engagements

•  Library of Congress – Performance analysis – Assessment, architecture and design

•  Panasas – Storage Benchmarking – Market analysis

•  Intelligence Community – SAN solutions – Performance analysis – Consolidation

Recent Engagements

•  Product Evaluations – Operating systems – File systems – HSM – SAN – NAS – RAID – JBOD – FC Switches & HBAs – SSD

System Modeling & Simulation

•  Modeling and Simulation – Models enable predictive analysis of system

behavior •  Under varying configurations and workloads

– Simulation combines system and workload models •  To automate the performance analysis and prediction

process

– Models provide data collection & analysis facilities •  To quantify and substantiate cause and effect behaviors

– Models deliver clarified predictive knowledge •  For rational, unbiased analysis

Modeling Engagements

•  Architectural Design & Validation – Commercial customers – The Boeing Company – Others

•  NAVOCEANO – Advanced storage solution

•  HPC Vendor –  Internal architectural assessment

•  DoD – Performance predictions

Summary

•  Instrumental delivers – World class understanding of systems and I/O – Broad technology depth – Unique development capabilities – High performance engineering roots

•  And the customer benefits – Systems with high performance and high

reliability – Systems that meet requirements at time of

production – Better ROI for their IT dollars

Thank You

Contact Info: Instrumental, Inc.

2748 East 82nd Street Bloomington, MN 55425

952-345-2820