Cloud HPC Implementation

Building Infinite Clusters: Automation, Ephemeral Scaling, and Cost Control.

The Virtual Supercomputer

Cloud HPC offers infinite scale, but unlike an on-premise basement cluster, the meter is always running. Implementation is not just about installing software; it is about Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and precise Financial Orchestration.

The Ephemeral Model: "The Pop-Up Cluster"

Head Node

Small, cheap VM running 24/7. Holds the scheduler (Slurm) and manages the user login access.

Compute Nodes

These do not exist until a job is submitted. They spin up, calculate, and are destroyed immediately after completion.

Cost Saving

You pay for 100 servers for exactly the 2 hours they ran, not for the idle time in between.

Implementation Workflow

Step 1: Network & Security (VPC)

We build a fenced-off Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). A public subnet for the login node and a private, isolated subnet for compute nodes to prevent external threats.

Step 2: Storage Strategy

Data movement is expensive. We deploy high-speed managed services like AWS FSx for Lustre or Azure NetApp Files for scratch space, with S3/Blob storage for long-term archiving.

Step 3: The Orchestrator

We never create VMs manually. We use industry-standard orchestrators to define your datacenter in a simple config file:

  • AWS ParallelCluster: Python-based CLI for Slurm on AWS.
  • Azure CycleCloud: Visual GUI for enterprise cost management.
  • Terraform: Multi-cloud infrastructure as code.

HPC Cloud-Native Innovations

Spot Instances

Purchase spare capacity at up to 90% discount. We implement Slurm Requeueing so your job automatically resumes if a node is reclaimed by the provider.

EFA & InfiniBand

Cloud networks are often too slow for MPI. We select specialized instance types (e.g., AWS hpc6a) with Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for low-latency scaling.

HPC Cloud Comparison Matrix

Cloud Provider Orchestrator Network Tech Fast Storage
AWS ParallelCluster EFA FSx for Lustre
Azure CycleCloud InfiniBand NetApp Files
Google Cloud Cluster Toolkit FastSocket Filestore (NFS)

Scale to Infinity

Download our "Cloud HPC Implementation Framework" to learn how to deploy Slurm on AWS in less than 30 minutes.

Download Implementation Guide (.docx)