Inspire – Next-Generation HPC at NASA Goddard
The first Beowulf cluster was built in 1994 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Thirty years later, most high-performance computing (HPC) centers still follow the same basic cluster paradigm. The intervening decades have witnessed many evolutions in computing: virtualization/cloud, software-defined networking, Kubernetes, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), GitOps, Agile, and more. The traditional cluster paradigm, with static network zones and security controls, makes it all but impossible to “bolt” these new technologies onto an existing operational system. The HPC community needs a new approach, one that will increase interoperability between the on-premises solution and commercial clouds by enabling the reuse of code for automating the deployment of infrastructure and services. Such an approach translates into faster time to science discoveries for end users. This is the vision and one team’s journey to rapidly modernize in one giant leap. “Inspire” is the next-generation system being built at NASA Goddard. It is designed from the ground up to leverage modern cloud-native methods and best practices to flexibly deploy bare metal, virtual machines (VMs), or containers from a single pool of resources. Building such a system requires paying attention to network design, OpenStack and Ironic, security considerations like the DevSecOps approach, and cultural barriers to adoption.
Quick Facts
-
Core concepts of a next-generation system include:
- Infrastructure as code
- Automation of bare metal deployments
- Software-defined networking
- Tiered storage hierarchy
-
Security aspects of a next-generation system include:
- Continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for image generation
- DevSecOps approach
- Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA) and role-based access controls (RBAC)
- Observability and continuous reporting
Researchers
- Jonathan Mills, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Please enable Javascript to see email address.
- Robert Budden, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Please enable Javascript to see email address.
