Till a few years back, the highly complex high performance computing (HPC) space was relatively out of bounds for channel partners in India. This was due to the technology intensive and mission-critical nature of the projects. So vendors preferred to drive projects directly or go with tier-one partners. However, the scenario has changed over the last few years. 

Today, the HPC segment has come a long way from being restricted to academia and R&D institutes, to the wider realm of enterprise. It includes areas such as manufacturing, design, news and media, biotechnology, oil and gas, pharma industries and many more. 

Vendors have also realized that direct market penetration especially into the tier two cities can be tough without the help of channel partners. This has opened up a new, lucrative avenue of growth for partners. Four major vendors play in this high stakes arena- market leader Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI), HP, Sun Microsystems and IBM.

Though market estimates are not available, it would be fair to say that the market opportunity available in India is in the whereabouts of $30 million every year. The sector is witnessing a steady annual growth of around 20-30%.

What is HPC?
High performance computing, which used to be synonymous with supercomputers, refers to the usage of computers for solving complex computing problems, be it-nanotechnology, 3D modeling, electronic design automation, intensive research and computer aided animation. This domain-intensive space uses high-end software and hardware to simulate real-life scenarios.

To attempt to simplify this complex space would be a daunting task, but in layperson's terms, the HPC segment could be classified into supercomputers and clusters. The supercomputer that involves symmetric multi-processing systems (SMP)/ non-uniform memory access architecture (NUMA) is a computer that uses a large number of high-performance microprocessors. It is quite expensive. 

Clusters on the other hand, provide the compute power by dividing the task among a number of computers. Terabytes of data can be processed over networks in seconds. This level of computing is what keeps business efficiency and productivity in enterprises running smoothly. 

The Indian scenario 
Companies like SGI and HP handle about half the business in the HPC segment directly. While the rest is dealt by their tier-one partners like major Indian SIs, Tata Elxsi, CMC and others. However, with the high growth potential of this segment, vendors are trying to make better inroads into the market via the channel route. 

Stressing the growth curve of the HPC segment, Avinash Fotedar, Director, Marketing of SGI India, which is the leader in this space, said, “HPC has finally arrived in India. There is tremendous movement in this space. Even five years ago, people weren't buying into this. But now, we see a lot of demand across various verticals and customers are more aware and willing to buy.”

More than 60% of SGI's Indian revenues come from HPC wins. The company currently has eight, tier-one channel partners and recently tied up with Redington to tap the tier two market. “We have about 25 tier-two partners and we feel that the only way to increase our geographical reach is through channels,” commented Avinash. 

Echoing the same view, HP's country Manager for HPC and Linux Customer Solutions Group, Faisal M Paul stated that HP is increasing its dependence on partners. “In the next few months, we will be covering the breadth of opportunity through tier two partners.” HP recently appointed channel partners like Vitage and Micropoint and is looking for a distributor for the HPC space. He is confident that 2005 would a big year for HP in HPC and is eyeing close to $10 million from this segment alone. 

Sun Microsystems banks on its seven Indian partners including Accel ICIM, Wipro, Locus, Summation, Skylark, Frontier and Progression Infotech to deploy its HPC projects.

Most vendors are quite picky in choosing partners and are typically looking for solution partners with skills in specific areas. “The mindset is still about box-selling and standard services on boxes. Most partners are used to selling ERP and commercial applications. This has to change a lot if they want to move up the value chain,” stated Avinash. 

IBM prefers to call this space 'Deep Computing' since the sector has moved from traditional education and research to power-hungry, high-speed and complex commercial applications. “We need partners who are able to develop complex applications in specific areas,” said Rajesh Saha, GM, Systems and Technology, IBM. 

“We have noticed that most of the successful SIs in this space are those who have implemented solutions abroad and are now looking at the Indian market,” added Rajesh. He further opined that solution partners who move up the value chain would inevitably look for greener pastures outside India. 

What It Takes
Most vendors share the view that niche expertise is needed in this space. Said Sun Microsystems' Director, Systems Engineering, Anil Valluri, “HPC is a general term, but the fact remains that there are broad and varied applications since it spans across different verticals.” 

Specific applications in areas like education, molecular modeling, pharma and biotech can translate into customer level applications as possible opportunities. “Partners should be able to understand the kind of applications that would be involved on the customer end and package solutions accordingly,” said Anil. 

Sharing his view, Rajesh said that areas like virtualization, digital media content creation and domain expertise in areas like weather forecasting, computer aided engineering and engineering services would be a good bet. According to HP, the penguin may spell profits for agile partners. “There is a paradigm shift in HPC and we are seeing this whole population of Linux clusters. Partners can add a lot of services around the Linux boxes,” commented Faisal. 

Depending on the kind of implementations, turnkey projects would also be available in areas like networking, storage networks and related software expertise. Said Avinash, “Partners have to understand what kind of technical issues could affect clients like latency and making the grid and software ready for applications.” 

Most vendors feel that solution partners have to make a major shift from box selling to technology selling to making a difference in the field. And if partners are able to capitalize on this opportunity, it could well mean a quantum leap for their business. 

RECENT HPC DEPLOYMENTS

1. Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad
Vendor: Sun Microsystems
Solution: Linux-based Grid Farm with 32 processors and other servers for high-performance bioinformatics computing; Sun Blade 1,500 graphical desktops; Sun Blade 150 desktops and Sun Ray appliances
Applications: To aid research in DNA fingerprinting, diagnostics and bioinformatics 
Partner: Locus

2. BG Exploration & Production India Limited 
Vendor: SGI
Solution: Deployment of a 10 Intel Itanium 2 processor-based SGI Altix 350 server at BG Exploration & Production India Limited (BGEPIL), which is a business of BG India 
Applications: The Altix system, equipped with ten processors, 20GB of memory and almost half a terabyte of local disk capacity, will also allow BGEPIL to reduce simulation-processing time and optimize decisions related to drilling and acquisition of assets within new areas 
Partner: Direct presence 

3. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi 

Vendor: SGI
Solution: The institute recently acquired a 16-processor mid-range SGI Altix 350 system. 
Applications: This will support research in functional genomics and proteomics, structural biology, molecular simulations and vaccinology. The single image system will also enable large datasets to be analyzed in Econometrics and GIS analysis to expand the social science research strengths of the university
Partner: A2 Technologies, Delhi

4. University of Hyderabad
Vendor: IBM 
Partner: not disclosed
Solution: IBM p690 (96 CPUs)
IBM Squadron POWER5 (64 CPUs)(to be installed in 2006)
IBM SquadronPOWER5+(64 CPUs)(to be installed in 2007)
IBM FastT200 Storage (4 TB)
Applications: Setup high-end computer infrastructure to support research activities in life science and keep the technology latest and updated for the next five years
Partner: Not disclosed

5. TATA Motors (TELCO)
Vendor: IBM
Solution: + IBM p690s, p650s
+ IBM Enterprise Storage Server ( 3 TB),
+ Ultrium Tape Library
+ IBM Software TSM
Applications: Plan for consolidated and scalable infrastructure to support one of the world's largest e-Automotive Siebel CRM implementation
Partner: Not disclosed

6. IIT Kanpur 
Vendor: Sun Microsystems
Solution: Largest AMD Opteron HPC cluster in the education segment in the country 
Applications: It would cater to the HPC requirements across various departments at IIT Kanpur
Partner: Wipro

PRIYA PADMANABHAN
BANGALORE

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