SC24 Recap: The Year of Fuzzball and Community Connections
Supercomputing 2024 (SC24) in Atlanta brought together the HPC (High Performance Computing) community for another exciting and well-attended event. For our team, it marked a moment in time where we felt a shift in this community towards 1) a push for a more modern approach to handling performance-intensive workloads and 2) a merged HPC and AI/ML universe.
Here’s a recap of our highlights and key takeaways:
Fuzzball for HPC workloads
Fuzzball, our container orchestration platform purpose-built for HPC, was the buzz at our booth this year. Visitors were eager to learn more about its capabilities for bridging the gap between traditional HPC workloads and AI workflows. There were many “aha” moments as attendees discovered how Fuzzball directly addresses challenges around resource scaling using simple workflow definitions. Our sneak peek demo of Fuzzball Federate also generated excitement, as we showcased its ability to seamlessly orchestrate workflows across on-premises and cloud environments.
AI’s growing role in HPC
AI (artificial intelligence) remains a hot topic in the HPC community, though its presence at SC24 felt more integrated than dominant. This year highlighted a blending of AI with traditional HPC, particularly through discussions about orchestration platforms like Fuzzball, which enable researchers to scale AI workloads efficiently.
A vibrant community
At CIQ, community is our foundation. SC24 provided a unique opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, collaborators, and customers, emphasizing the collaborative spirit of open source. From engaging booth interactions to Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, every conversation underscored the importance of the open source community in driving the HPC industry forward. Notably, we saw Warewulf 4 continue to gain traction, with multiple users showcasing its deployment in innovative ways and its integration into OpenHPC as a notable milestone. We also appreciated how the Apptainer BoF fostered a deeper connection with its user base, addressing specific challenges and encouraging new contributions to the project.
Student cluster competition
Always a highlight of SC24, the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) brings together student teams from around the world to design, build, and run real-world scientific workloads on their own HPC clusters — all within a strict power budget! This year, Rocky Linux was the operating system of choice for most teams, reflecting its strong adoption in the HPC community. We were also excited to see the University of New Mexico team utilize Warewulf for their cluster management. Post-competition, CIQ Engineers provided insights and encouraged the students to engage further with the Warewulf community as they prepare for future competitions.
Exhibition floor
The SC24 exhibition floor was filled with innovative demos and engaging setups. We were particularly impressed by Dell’s AI immersive booth, which featured container-like cubes with panoramic views of the conference floor. We enjoyed interactive exhibits like Georgia Tech’s improvising musical robot and HLRS’s real-time flight simulator. Vdura’s booth featuring ‘The Mountain’ from Game of Thrones (aka Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) was a popular attraction. CIQ’s booth, complete with a Street Fighter II arcade setup, was a hit with attendees (and our CEO Gregory Kurtzer). We also spotted our custom swag (including Rocky Linux earrings!) worn by many attendees throughout the conference.
Looking forward to SC25
With SC24 in the rearview, we’re already looking forward to SC25 in St. Louis, themed “HPC Ignites.” We hope we’ll see you there, too!
In case you missed us at SC24 or are eager to explore our solutions further, we’d love to connect. Check out our upcoming Orchestration Toolbox Series, showcasing cutting-edge tools for managing HPC and AI/ML workloads. You can register now for webinars on using Warewulf to manage GPU clusters and CIQ Fuzzball for streamlined workload deployment.
