Strategy · December 2025 · 12 min read

HPC Foundations for 2025 Clusters

High-performance computing in 2025 is defined by exascale systems, AI + simulation convergence, and a security bar influenced by DOE, EuroHPC, and Fortune 100 procurement teams. This primer condenses the lessons we see across national labs and enterprise programs so you can bring a new cluster online with fewer surprises.

Why the baseline changed

• Hardware scale: Frontier at Oak Ridge still leads the November 2024 TOP500 with 1.206 EF/s, while Aurora (Argonne) debuted at 1.012 EF/s and El Capitan (LLNL) is targeting 2+ EF/s with AMD MI300A nodes.
• Workload mix: MLPerf Training 4Q24 results show GH200 and MI300A systems topping both AI and HPC charts. Your scheduler must juggle MPI, CUDA, PyTorch, and data prep jobs without starving one pillar.
• Compliance pressure: Zero-trust mandates—identity proofing, short-lived credentials, encrypted transports—are now contractual requirements.

Reference architecture

Identity + Policy ──> Bastion ──> Login Nodes ──> Scheduler/API (Slurm 24.05)
                             │                  │
                             ├─ Transfer Nodes ─┤
                             │                  │
                  Object Store + Parallel FS   Compute + GPU Partitions + Burst Buffers
    

Identity & guardrails: Hardware-backed MFA tied to your IdP, short-lived SSH certificates, and project metadata synchronized across Unix groups, Slurm accounts, and storage buckets.

Access tier: Dedicated bastions with session recording and eBPF anomaly detection; login nodes separated from scheduler/database nodes.

Data tier: Globus-enabled transfer nodes, parallel file systems (Lustre 2.15, Spectrum Scale 5.2, BeeGFS 7.3), and object storage for long-lived datasets.

Scheduler plane: Slurm 24.05 with federation, cgroup v2 accounting, power capping, and job_submit plugins that label sensitivity and enforce QoS budgets.

Day-zero checklist

Access readiness

1. Connect IdP + MFA to bastions and Kubernetes dashboards.
2. Issue project-specific SSH cert templates with constrained principals.
3. Publish a “first login” runbook with screenshots for auditors.

Data pathways

1. Document where each dataset lives and what QoS it requires.
2. Pre-stage transfer tests (Globus, bbcp, rsync) to validate throughput.
3. Automate scrubbing on node-local NVMe for regulated workloads.

Scheduler governance

1. Define QoS tiers anchored to budget conversations.
2. Enable job accounting exports to ClickHouse/Timescale.
3. Simulate mixed workloads using ReFrame, Slurm Simulator, or OpenXLA benchmarks.

Observability baseline

• Node health scoring: Combine IPMI sensors, ECC events, NIC retransmits, and GPU health.
• Scheduler telemetry: Slurm exporters feeding Grafana plus a long-term warehouse.
• Data lineage: eBPF or Zeek captures on transfer nodes for CMMC/ITAR evidence.

Operating targets

• Content + config build time: <5 minutes for 500+ page documentation.
• Utilization: 80–90% average without blowing through wait-time SLAs.
• Search latency: <100 ms for knowledge-base lookups.
• Cache hit ratio: >70% on incremental builds.

References

• TOP500.org – November 2024 list.
• Slurm 24.05 / 24.11 release notes.
• MLPerf Training & Inference 4Q24 results.
• SC24 + ISC 2024 field briefings.