What is High Performance Cloud Computing?
High performance cloud computing is the ability to process large amounts of data or complex calculations at speeds not normally seen with standard cloud computing. High performance is achieved through the use of several computers in parallel to perform tasks at the same time – or through a supercomputer. In this way, high performance cloud computing drastically reduces the time needed to process data or calculations.
You gain access to the cloud through an agreement with a third-party cloud service provider, such as AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. There are many benefits to such an arrangement. For startups or younger companies, capital investment for the required computing and IT infrastructure needed to support high performance data storage is extremely expensive. With the rate at which technology continues to evolve, your expensive on-premises data center may well be obsolete within a few years. You’re now stuck with the headache of operating and maintaining an on-premises computing system that may no longer give the performance your company needs to stay competitive. The cloud lowers the barrier to adopt high performance as part of your computing strategy. High performance cloud computing allows you to accelerate your company’s growth at the computing speeds that you need, all while enjoying the almost limitless flexibility and scalability of the cloud.
Over time however, your performance may start to wane as your company grows. Your company’s competitive edge rides on how quickly you can gain critical business insights from your ever-growing data. Your employees rely on your company’s computing resources to perform their jobs. Your customers interact with your product or service via your website powered by your cloud computing infrastructure. As your need for cloud computing resources grows, you may quickly hit a performance ceiling. Since cloud computing is shared by design, cloud service providers throttle speeds for the benefit of all users. To maintain the highest level of cloud computing performance, you may resort to provisioning additional cloud resources. On the cloud, every byte counts. The high performance that you need may come with a ballooning cloud bill, affecting your bottom line.
Silk allows you to benefit from high performance in the cloud without blowing through your cloud bill each month. The Silk Cloud DB Virtualization Platform breaks the link between computing power and performance on the cloud. As a result, you don’t need to overprovision cloud resources to achieve peak performance.
Silk’s data services help to minimize the amount of cloud resources you ultimately need, which in turn, helps to keep your cloud costs under control. Silk also offers rich, enterprise data services such as zero-footprint snapshots, data reduction, deduplication, and thin provisioning. These features are not available in native cloud alone.
High Performance Cloud Computing FAQs
What is the difference between high performance computing and cloud computing?
High performance computing (HPC) utilizes multiple computers to process very large amounts of data as well as solve complex calculations. HPC architecture is built from numerous servers working in parallel. Each group of servers is called a cluster. These clusters work together to process HPC workloads, applications, and other complex computational models. Traditional HPC systems consume a lot of energy and real estate and are typically housed at a local academic, research or privately funded institution. In contrast, cloud computing is readily accessed over the internet.
Cloud computing provides the ability to process data and perform calculations as a paid service that you access over the internet. AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure are popular cloud service providers that allow you to host your data, databases, applications, and other workloads on the cloud. You gain access to your cloud infrastructure via an agreement with a cloud service provider. Depending on your desired level of involvement you can select a cloud deployment model that best suits the needs of your business.
With Silk, you can experience the best of both worlds with high performance for your most complex workloads, while enjoying the flexibility and scalability of the cloud.
How is cloud computing useful to high performance computing?
High performance computing (HPC) has traditionally been confined to the walls of academic or research institutions. Cloud computing breaks down these walls and allows virtually unrestricted access to HPC. Various industries including finance, healthcare, insurance and retail have unlocked performance levels unheard of before the advent of cloud computing.
To remain competitive and survive these very competitive industries, HPC is the way to go. To overcome the considerable upfront capital investment, migrating to the cloud will future-proof your evolving computing needs. By partnering with Silk, you won’t have to worry about hitting a performance ceiling once on the cloud. Silk separates performance from computing power. This allows you to scale and grow your business without over provisioning cloud resources. With Silk, your company can continue to experience high performance on the cloud, without breaking the bank. Trust us, your bottom line will thank you.
