HPC Roadmap Development is the strategic planning process that bridges the gap between where an organization is today (e.g., individual workstations) and where it wants to be in 5 years (e.g., running AI-driven petascale simulations).

Buying a supercomputer is easy; building a sustainable HPC ecosystem is hard. A roadmap ensures that you don't buy a Ferrari (Cluster) only to realize you don't have a garage (Data Center) or gas (Electricity) for it.

Here is the detailed breakdown of the strategy, the phased approach, and the deliverable structure, followed by the downloadable Word file.

1. The Fundamentals: The 4 Pillars of a Roadmap

An HPC roadmap is not just a hardware shopping list. It must balance four interconnected pillars:

1. Technology: What hardware (CPU vs. GPU) and software do we need for our specific science?
2. Infrastructure: Do we have the physical space, power (Megawatts), and cooling (Water/Air) to run it?
3. People & Skills: Who will fix it when it breaks? Who will teach scientists how to use it?
4. Financials: Balancing CapEx (Hardware purchases) vs. OpEx (Electricity, Cloud bursting, Staff).

2. The Strategy: A Phased Approach (3-5 Years)

We typically structure HPC roadmaps in three distinct horizons to ensure scalability.

• Horizon 1: Stabilization (Year 0-1)
• Goal: Fix immediate bottlenecks.
• Actions: Upgrade the current scheduler, add high-speed storage to feed existing nodes, and implement "Cloud Bursting" to handle overflow.
• Horizon 2: Acceleration (Year 1-3)
• Goal: Enable new capabilities (e.g., AI/ML).
• Actions: Procure a new GPU-dense partition. Upgrade the network to InfiniBand HDR/NDR. Retrofit data center cooling for higher density racks (Liquid Cooling).
• Horizon 3: Transformation (Year 3-5)
• Goal: Next-generation science.
• Actions: Prepare for Exascale technologies. Explore Quantum Computing integration. Automate workflows fully with "HPC-as-a-Service" portals.

3. Key deliverables of the Roadmap

When we deliver a roadmap, it includes:

• Capacity Planning Model: An Excel model predicting that "Based on 20% data growth per year, you will run out of storage in 18 months."
• Facility Retrofit Plan: A diagram showing how to upgrade power feeds from 50kW to 200kW per row.
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A calculation proving that while Cloud is cheaper for month 1, On-Premises is 40% cheaper over 5 years.

4. Tools Used for Roadmapping

Category	Tool	Usage
Financial Modeling	TCO Calculators	Custom Excel/Python models comparing On-Prem vs. Cloud costs over 5 years.
Architecture	Microsoft Visio / Lucidchart	Designing the "To-Be" network and facility topology.
Project Management	MS Project / Jira	Mapping out the multi-year implementation timeline (Gantt Charts).
Capacity Planning	VDI / Splunk	Analyzing historical usage trends to predict future compute demand.