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High end server computing and HPC

 0% complete 1. About you and the environment you are working in

1.1 Which of the following best describes your role?

IT Manager or Executive
Architect or system designer
Operations specialist
Other IT professional
Other (please specify)

1.2 What is your level of experience in relation to the following areas? (please tick all that apply)

 
Managed teams/depts active in this area
Direct design and/or implementation experience
Direct operations and/or support experience
General-purpose server computing, i.e. the use of server technology in a mainstream IT environment for dealing with everyday computing requirements
High transaction throughput systems, i.e. the stuff designed to deal with rapid high volume throughput of relatively small, simple and discrete units of work
High performance/parallel computing (HPC), i.e. the use of server technologies designed to allow compute intensive tasks to be broken in to pieces and executed in parallel

1.3 Which of the following specific architectures do you have experience or knowledge of? (please tick all that apply)

High end Unix boxes
Unix based clusters/grids
High end Linux boxes
Linux based clusters/grids
High end Windows boxes
Windows based clusters/grids
Mainframe (e.g. IBM System z)
Specialist 'super computers'
Other high end server architectures

1.4 What is the size of your organisation?

More than 50,000 employees
5,000 to 50,000 employees
250 to 5,000 employees
50 to 250 employees
Under 50 employees
NA - Responding based on experience with multiple clients of varying sizes

1.5 What is the industry sector of your organisation?

Financial services
Energy
Telecommunications
Aerospace and defence
Architecture, engineering or construction
Other industrial
Media/entertainment (inc film, gaming, etc)
Medical / Health care
Research and/or educational establishment
Central government
Local government
IT
Other (please specify)
NA - working with multiple clients across a number of industries

1.6 Thinking of particularly demanding workloads, how much do the following exist in your organisation?

 
Many of these exist
A small number of these exist
None of these exist
High transaction workloads, involving rapid throughput of relatively small, simple and discrete units of work
Compute intensive online apps, requiring lots of processing power to be available on demand, e.g. for heavy number crunching work conducted interactively (with fast ASAP execution)
Compute intensive batch jobs, using lots of processing power to execute heavy number crunching work asynchronously (less time critical)

1.7 If relevant, can you provide us with one or two examples of each of these?

High transaction workloads
Compute intensive online applications
Compute intensive batch jobs

1.8 If you have mentioned any compute intensive batch jobs, would there be business benefit to running any or all of these interactively / on demand rather than in batch?

Yes
Possibly
No
N/A (don't have such workloads)

1.8a If you answered Yes, or Possibly above; which ones?

 

1.9 What, if anything, prevents such batch jobs from being re-implemented to run interactively / on demand?

 
Primary constraint
Secondary constraint
Not an issue
Infrastructure not up to it, and funding not available to upgrade
Don't have the skills/experience to redesign apps appropriately
Nature of application (e.g. not suitable for parallel execution)
Lack of time, resources, and/or other competing priorities
Inertia; used to running in batch, online option not considered
Other (please specify)

1.10 Coming back to more demanding workloads in general, do any of the following types of compute-intensive applications exist in the environment you are working in? (please tick all that apply - both columns if both online and batch apps exist in a category)

 
Yes, running interactively
Yes, running in batch
Technical modelling and/or simulation (e.g. engineering, R&D)
Business modelling and/or simulation (financial, commercial)
Business analytics (heavier business intelligence requirements)
Forensics and security (surveillance, fraud detection, etc)
Number crunching within business processes
Graphics generation and rendering, visualisation
Complex spreadsheet processing
Other (please specify)