Atlanta SC24 Reflections
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Case Study
Transitioning HPC to the Cloud, and delivering cost efficiencies for ‘iconic’ organisation, Lloyd’s Register
The Customer
Lloyd’s Register (LR) is one of England’s most iconic organisations, with a history stretching back to 1760. Originally founded in London as a maritime classification society, LR has significantly expanded its services globally over the centuries.
Today, LR provides certification, compliance, and consultancy services across various industries, maintaining its roots in the marine and offshore sectors. It assists clients in the safe design, construction, operation, extension, and decommissioning of assets, ensuring adherence to stringent environmental standards.
The Challenge
LR originally managed its High-Performance Computing (HPC) needs with four racks in its data centre, comprising approximately 120 cores and 2 terabytes of RAM. Despite having an experienced outsourced team managing this setup for about a decade, a change in strategy from the provider reduced their focus on HPC support solutions.
This is where Red Oak Consulting stepped in.
Specific Challenges Faced by LR:
- Transitioning from an on-premises HPC setup to an Azure-based Cloud solution.
- Managing and optimising costs associated with HPC operations.
- Ensuring stability and reliability of the new HPC environment.
- Meeting the high demand for HPC resources across LR’s many global offices, often used for shipping simulations and other complex computational tasks.
- Creating a mature and scalable Cloud environment from scratch.
- LR had had a lot of people wanting to use HPC across the globe, but they were using it as a high-end workstation rather than for its designed purpose – often for cost modelling or simulations.
- LR has to run ship simulations through HPC, such as how a ship rolls with the waves, how the bow cuts through the water, or how much cargo can be carried for example. Therefore, the running of simulations was crucial to ship efficiency, and safety of ships.
What did Red Oak Consulting do?
The team at Red Oak engaged extensively with LR stakeholders and HPC users to fully understand the current systems, and how to deliver a ‘maturity wrap’ around the HPC. Previously, it had been set up as a testing site, but key to moving forward was for LR to gain better efficiencies on cost, and computational throughput.
Support, including the addition of extended services was managed through Red Oak’s ROMS (Red Oak Managed Services) team. Two pivotal strategic changes Red Oak introduced were to transfer the old Cloud cycle to the new one and to implement the spinning up of spot nodes to help re-run evicted jobs.
By doing so, additional challenges were met:
Transitioning Cloud Clusters
Red Oak moved the existing Cloud cluster to a new, more efficient cycle Cloud cluster. This new setup went live in April 2023.
Cost Management and Stability
Red Oak focused on managing and reducing costs, which included reducing the number of racks and cutting support costs. This brought much-needed stability to the HPC services.
Leveraging Azure Spot Nodes
Red Oak implemented automated scripting on the use of Azure spot nodes, which are cost-effective but come with the risk of eviction, where users may not complete the tasks at hand when jobs are driven out by higher priorities.
To mitigate this, Red Oak developed mechanisms to re-run evicted jobs seamlessly, ensuring increased throughput without sacrificing reliability. This was particularly useful where users wanted to run shorter, non-critical jobs, but in a more cost-effective way.
Customised HPC Environment
Red Oak rebuilt the HPC environment from scratch, tailored to meet LR’s specific needs. This included setting up ROMS (Red Oak Managed Services) and a robust ticket system for better operational efficiency.
Enhanced User Experience
The new system was designed to handle the high demand from LR’s global offices, allowing more users to leverage the HPC resources effectively for simulations and cost modelling.
Working with Lloyd's Register to enhance their HPC capabilities in the Cloud was a rewarding challenge. Our focus was on creating a stable, cost-effective, and high-performing environment that could meet their diverse needs." .
Owen Thomas, Red Oak Consulting
The Results
LR experienced significant improvements in their HPC operations as a result of Red Oak Consulting’s intervention namely:
- Increased Efficiency – the transition to a new Cloud cluster and the use of spot nodes increased computational throughput.
- Cost Savings – efficient management and use of spot nodes helped in cutting down operational costs, while the significant reduction of hardware, and space allocated to housing the hardware, reduced support and maintenance costs.
- Reliability and Stability – the new HPC environment provided a stable and reliable platform for LR’s extensive simulation needs.
- Enhanced Support – the implementation of ROMS and a ticket management system improved overall support and user experience.
I highly recommend ROMS for their exceptional HPC (High-Performance Computing) support services. From the moment we engaged with them, their professionalism and expertise were evident. They demonstrated a deep understanding of our needs and provided tailored solutions that perfectly aligned with our requirements. Their level of engagement and commitment to delivering high-quality results matched our expectations. Red Oak Consultancy has proven to be a reliable and knowledgeable partner in the realm of HPC, and we continue to benefit from their valuable support.”
Lloyd’s Regsister
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