Six tips for cluster head node design

Brendan Bouffler
Date : April 27, 2023
Categories : AWS ParallelCluster ,Amazon NICE DCV ,Elastic Fabric Adapter ,Life Sciences
Tags : cpus ,dcv ,ec2 ,efa ,gpus ,hpc ,high performance computing ,lustre ,mpi ,parallel cluster ,schedulers ,storage ,autoscaling ,bioinformatics ,cloud computing ,design ,elastic ,elastic fabric adapter ,head node ,headnode ,infiniband ,scientific computing ,technical computing ,tightly coupled ,virtualization ,vizualization ,techshorts

We always worry the most about the compute nodes on a cluster (for a good reason - it’s where all the action is), but it’s worth taking a moment to think about your head node, because that’s where you can really define your user’s experience.

Matt Vaughn stopped by to explain some of the fundamentals for head node design in AWS ParallelCluster and gave us 6 tips for getting it close enough the first time - but don’t forget these are just mouse clicks, and you can change your mind later, really easily.

If you have ideas for technical topics you’d like to see us cover in a future show, let us know by finding us on Twitter (@TechHpc) and DM’ing us with your idea.

Chapters:

00:52 - What’s in a head node anyway? 01:50 - Head node instance and CPU choice 02:15 - Graphics-enabled head node? 03:58 - AWS Systems Manager 05:43 - DCV for visualization 06:52 - Head node security groups and access 07:15 - Post install scripts to customize the environment 08:33 - Head node storage