HPC in India's Research Ecosystem
India's research computing landscape is growing rapidly. DST, CSIR, IITs, NITs, and central universities are investing in on-premise HPC clusters for computational chemistry, bioinformatics, climate modelling, fluid dynamics, and AI research. Getting the design right matters — a poorly architected cluster wastes research time and budget.
HPC Cluster Architecture Fundamentals
A standard HPC cluster has three node types:
- Login nodes: Where researchers submit jobs and compile code. Typically 1–2 nodes.
- Compute nodes: Where jobs actually run. Can be CPU-only, GPU, or high-memory nodes.
- Storage nodes: Shared parallel file system accessible by all compute nodes.
All nodes connect over a high-speed interconnect (InfiniBand or 25GbE) and a management network (1GbE).
Node Specifications for Indian Research HPC
CPU Compute Nodes
For general-purpose scientific computing (molecular dynamics, CFD, finite element analysis):
- 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8360Y (36 cores each = 72 cores/node) or equivalent AMD EPYC
- 256GB–512GB DDR4 ECC RAM
- 2TB NVMe local scratch storage
- 25GbE or InfiniBand HDR100 network card
- Certified refurbished option: HP DL380 Gen10 or Dell R640 from Serverwale at ₹1–₹2 lakh/node
GPU Compute Nodes
For deep learning, molecular simulation (GROMACS/AMBER), and image analysis:
- 2x Intel Xeon + 4x NVIDIA A100 or RTX A6000 per node
- 512GB RAM (AI/ML jobs are memory-hungry)
- NVLINK bridge for A100 multi-GPU
- ProStation GPU nodes from Serverwale for custom configurations
High-Memory Nodes
For genome assembly, large-scale graph analytics, and in-memory databases:
- 4–8 socket nodes with 3TB–12TB RAM
- HP Superdome Flex or Dell PowerEdge MX750c
Storage: Parallel File System
Individual node local storage is not sufficient for HPC. You need a parallel file system all nodes can access simultaneously:
- Lustre: Industry standard for large HPC. Complex to operate but scales to petabytes.
- BeeGFS: Easier to deploy than Lustre. Excellent for mid-scale clusters (100–500 nodes).
- GPFS/Spectrum Scale: IBM's enterprise parallel FS. Best support but expensive.
- NFS (simple setups): For clusters under 32 nodes with moderate I/O requirements.
Job Scheduler: SLURM
SLURM (Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management) is the dominant HPC job scheduler worldwide and used by most IIT/NIT clusters in India. Key concepts:
- Users submit jobs with
sbatch job.sh - Resources requested: CPUs, GPUs, RAM, walltime
- Jobs queue until resources are available
- Fair-share scheduling ensures all research groups get compute time
Funding Sources for Indian Research HPC
- DST (Department of Science and Technology) — SERB-funded infrastructure grants
- MoE (Ministry of Education) — RUSA and NIRF-linked infrastructure funding
- CSIR — Lab-specific HPC budget
- Industry-academia partnerships — Companies fund HPC in exchange for research access
Getting Your HPC Cluster Right
For Indian research institutions designing their first HPC cluster, Serverwale's HPC team provides end-to-end consultation — from architecture design through hardware procurement (including certified refurbished nodes at 60% below new), installation, OS deployment, and SLURM configuration.