Platform Computing Introduces Comprehensive Monitoring and Analysis Tools for Platform LSF Environments

TORONTO, May 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Platform Computing, the leader in cluster, grid and cloud management software, today announced the latest versions of two tools designed to help HPC administrators and IT managers monitor and report on high performance computing workloads as well as analyze the associated data.  Both tools help optimize decisions that lead toward more effective operations of their HPC datacenter. Platform RTM 8 is a comprehensive operational dashboard that provides administrators with the information and tools needed to maximize cluster efficiency, enable better user productivity and contain or reduce costs.  Geared toward IT managers, planners and administrators, Platform Analytics 8 is an advanced analysis and visualization tool that provides the insight needed to quickly identify and troubleshoot bottlenecks and analyze usage trends within the HPC datacenter so that administrators can improve capacity planning and optimize HPC resource utilization, leading to reduced costs.  Both products are designed to complement the Platform LSF product family.

Platform RTM provides the most comprehensive workload monitoring and reporting available for Platform LSF environments.  It offers easy and effective monitoring of all workload scheduling and license usage facets through a single interface, allowing administrators to quickly resolve issues without service interruptions.  A flexible, automated alert system also flags issues quickly to keep cluster resources up and running as needed.  With its broad set of capabilities, Platform RTM can replace multiple tools in typical Platform LSF environments with a single easy-to-use, monitoring tool. This results in improved productivity for administrators and users alike, as well as reduced cost and complexity.

A tool for analyzing, correlating and visualizing large amounts of Platform LSF workload data, Platform Analytics enables data-driven decision making based on job, resource and license data collected from one or more Platform LSF clusters.  The tool includes an innovative interface that is built on top of a powerful analytics engine, providing fast and easy results.  Users can choose from a variety of pre-configured dashboards or choose to build their own for obtaining quick answers about the status of their HPC infrastructure and applications for optimal resource planning and utilization.

Quotes

• "The ability to monitor cluster availability and performance is imperative when we're running millions of design simulations to test our latest software releases," said Steve MacQuiddy, IT Director Engineering Infrastructure, Cadence Design Systems.  "Having the single Platform RTM dashboard allows us to simultaneously observe the entire cluster environment and it has not only made it easier for us to better balance our workloads, but it's also helped us optimize throughput for our critical jobs during peak usage."
• "Keeping our HPC datacenter online is critical for us when we're running frequent tests of designs for our race cars.  Even slight design tweaks need to be tested scrupulously before we can put the design into production for the race track," said Matt Cadieux, IT Director, Red Bull Racing.  "Platform Analytics allows us to both track our cluster usage, as well as identify any potential problems that might interfere with running design tests.  It also allows the design team to plan peak usage around heavy test times so that the design process runs smoothly every time."
• "Platform RTM 8 is built on the powerful and extensible open-source Cacti graphing framework and offers some powerful new features like grid alarms, which allow us to quickly build alerts without resorting to Cacti graphs," said Kevin Rota, CIO, Simulia, Dassault Systemes.  "RTM has allowed Simulia to easily access and visualize extensive amounts of data providing much better insight into how our LSF resources are being used and by whom.  These new features will provide improvements in quality of service."
• "Cluster administrators need to be able to monitor and analyze their cluster performance in order to troubleshoot potential issues and analyze usage patterns for better efficiency and use across their Platform LSF infrastructures," said Louise Westoby, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Platform Computing.  "With IT staff strapped for time these days, building homegrown monitoring, reporting and alerting systems is not a viable option. Platform RTM and Platform Analytics offers the full visibility users need to get the most out of their Platform LSF clusters, queues and jobs so administrators and users can maintain productivity and contain costs."

Platform RTM 8 Features

Unlike tools that only monitor infrastructure at a basic level, Platform RTM includes workload and resource-aware monitoring across all workload facets, including global clusters, hosts, licenses queues, users and log files.  New features include:

• Single-view, intuitive dashboard – provides quick identification of problems via visible status indicators
• Multi-cluster support – improves efficiency by providing  way to manage tasks remotely for increased time savings
• Resource consumption monitoring – analyzes scheduling policies based on reported resource utilization
• Resource monitoring by user, group or team – ensures resource use is aligned to business priorities and aids in capacity planning through multi-level allocation monitoring
• Automated alerts and exception handling – improves cluster availability with timely notifications and reduces administrator workload through multiple metric triggers

Platform Analytics 8 Features

Platform Analytics uses an innovative visualization tool to translate raw business data into usable information quickly and easily.  Key features include:

• Powerful, graphical interface – provides a comprehensive, easily modifiable view to quickly answer workload usage questions
• Dashboard view – choose from pre-configured or customized views that incorporate existing data sources without the need for programming
• Multi-level analysis – allows analysis at the job, resource and service levels for increased efficiency and productivity and for identifying usage trends and chargeback needs
• Open architecture – easily integrates HPC datacenter and job-related data with external data sources
• High performance – dynamically scales to accommodate thousands of users and millions of jobs including access to long-range historical data for more thorough and complete analyses

Resources

Platform RTM 8 is available now and Platform Analytics 8 is available May 17.

• http://www.platform.com/workload-management/high-performance-computing/add-on-products/platform-rtm
• http:/www.platform.com/workload-management/high-performance-computing/add-on-products/platform-analytics
• Tweet this: Platform Computing releases RTM 8 and Analytics 8 to monitor, manage and analyze #HPC cluster usage: http://bit.ly/ijM8xt.

About Platform Computing

Platform Computing is the leader in cluster, grid and cloud management software -- serving more than 2,000 of the world's most demanding organizations. For 18 years, our workload and resource management solutions have delivered IT responsiveness and lower costs for enterprise and HPC applications. Platform has strategic relationships with Cray, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat, and SAS. Visit www.platform.com.

SOURCE Platform Computing