‘What is High-Performance Computing (HPC) in general?’ High-Performance Computing refers to the practice of aggregating computing power in a way that gives much higher performance than a typical desktop computer or workstation could achieve in order to solve major problems in science, engineering or business. HPC is actually used in two ways: can mean “High-Performance Computing” or “High-Performance Computing”. From the context it is usually quite clear what meaning is used.
What can HPC do for my business?
If you're not building rocket engines or working on a design for a new plane or car, you might think that HPC doesn't have much to offer you. This was probably true 25 years ago when the only high-performance computers were supercomputers, multi-million-dollar giants cared for by legions of experts. But the same forces that brought us $300 laptops also gave high-performance computers to people who would never have access before, including thousands of small and medium-sized businesses around the world. However, high-performance computing is still not “cheap” — while you can get into a small cluster that will greatly increase your computing capabilities by €10,000, it is still a big investment for most smaller companies. The first step in this process of making a decision on the implementation of HPC is to develop answers to the question: “How could my business grow if I had access to 100x more computing power?”
A tricky question
The answer is definitely not “more emails” or “more powerpoint slides,” — even today’s cheap computers are ridiculously too advanced for most of these office functions. And if your business focuses on, for example, handicrafts that are sold in very small quantities, the answer could be that more computing power would have no impact on your business.
But it is necessary to devote some time to serious thinking about this issue before you give up the idea of expanding your business by increasing your computing ability. HPC has almost as many uses in problem solving as the problems that need to be solved.
For example, a local chain of four petrol stations could use retail trend analysis software to review sales data over the last 5 years and give you an insight into which products are produced when they are sold. Using a computer for this problem instead of the owner's intuition may reveal some surprising trends in data that are regular and predictable, which can be used to get the right goods to the store at the right time. Add shelf setting data to this combination and you can now start determining which shelves are sold the fastest and improve sales by targeting high-margin goods to these areas.
A small engineering and design company is a natural job to consider HPC. Many of these companies already use advanced computer simulation software on engineer workstations in their offices. You may have avoided tendering for new contracts because you do not have the resources to perform computer simulations in the timeframe available before the deadline for replying. HPC can help here, and the advantage in this situation is that these types of companies do not add computing to the job, but only add more computing to the job that already depends on the simulation.
The same arguments can be applied to small manufacturing companies that use computer aid design and manufacturing software to optimize molds for casting, mixing, material flows, or any number of industrial uses.
What about financial analysis? Let's say you want to give your clients an investment strategy tailored to the current market and their risk tolerance, but you don't have enough strength to search for more than a few years of market data? HPC is here to also help you, and today even solutions are available that will allow you to use verified and true Microsoft Excel worksheets on the cluster.
The key is to have a clear picture of the problem you're trying to solve.
The key to finding out if a HPC investment makes sense for you is to know what you want to achieve. Implementing HPC for your business without a clear idea of what you want from it can easily turn it into an unnecessary and significant cost.
To resolve these concerns with expert help and free of charge, contact the EDIH Adria consortium.
English 
Croatian 
Italian