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Until now. The HP Scalable Visualization Array (HP SVA) is a highly affordable, scalable, ready-to-run visualization solution that completes the HP Unified Cluster Portfolio's integration of computation, data management and visualization in a single, integrated cluster environment. The HP SVA solution adds high-performance HP Workstations in building block configurations that combine with industry-standard visualization components and integrate with the HP XC System Software and HP StorageWorks Scalable File Share (HP SFS). State-of-the-art industry standard and open source clustering, graphics, and networking technology are leveraged to reduce costs and enhance flexibility. The tight integration of scalable computation, data management and visualization enables:
- clustered parallel visualization applications with support for very large data sets
- display of complex, high resolution images, including volume visualization
- real-time rendering, with computational steering via closely coupled visualization, computation and data management.
Configuration
Unlike competitive products, HP SVA is a true cluster element adding the concept of visualization building blocks to the already proven cluster building blocks concept. The HP SVA consists of a cluster of HP workstations in visualization building block configurations running open source Linux, industry standard graphics cards and network adaptors, and an integrated software system. System software includes Scalable Visualization Array software for configuration and job management and XC System Software for cluster infrastructure and workload management and seamless integration with the computational cluster. HP SFS software and HP Remote Graphics Software are optional.
Visualization and graphics libraries are provided by third party vendors and the Open Source community. Commercial applications and applications written by end users can run on SVA, taking full advantage of the various toolkits and libraries. HP SVA is also compatible with all Open Graphics Applications Programming Interfaces (API).
Scalability and Flexibility
The SVA scales to support diverse visualization workloads including multi-user, multi-tasking, and multi-sessions. Cluster users can add as many visualization nodes to their environment as they require, scaling with computation and data management. These nodes are shared resources and can be used together for scalable performance or individually by different applications. The resulting visual images can be viewed remotely on any standard desktop system.
HP SVA supports various visualization styles, models, and display systems including single screens, caves or walls. The SVA technology can produce a vast, high resolution display wall of 100 million pixels and more.
HP’s SVA works in three flexible modes that can be mixed and dynamically changed as requirements change, using the SVA job and resource management tools. The three modes are:
- A cluster of independent workstations with centrally managed resources for easy scheduling and running any application, increasing workstation utilization and improving ROI;
- A cluster of synchronized workstations with the capability to scale across a number of displays with middleware offering spatial compositing for applications;
- A sort-last computing cluster that is a Linux cluster visualization system that distributes image data among workstations working in parallel to render a portion of the image faster, then composited to produce the final image
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Printable version
Visualization is a critical capability to enhance the productivity of HPC environments. High performance scientific and engineering problems generate very large data sets that need to be analyzed and visualized, often interactively with computational jobs. However, advances in computational performance have outpaced capabilities in visualization tools and available solutions have been too expensive and/or limited in performance and scalability.