D5.1: Market and Technology Watch Report Year 1

The PRACE-4IP Work Package 5 (WP5), “Best Practices for HPC Systems Commissioning”, has three objectives: Procurement independent vendor relations and market watch (Task 1) Best practices for energy-efficient HPC Centre Infrastructures design and operations (Task 2) Best practices for prototype planning and evaluation (Task 3) This Work Package builds on the important work performed in previous PRACE Projects in terms of technology watch, know-how and best practices for energy-efficient HPC Centre Infrastructures design and operations, and prototyping of HPC systems. It aims at delivering information and guidance useful for decision makers at different levels. Among them, PRACE aisbl and PRACE sites general managers are clear targets for the technology and market information and orientations collected in this deliverable, but all technical specialists of PRACE partners can be interested in some of the material collected. This deliverable is the first one of PRACE-4IP Work Package 5 Task 1, it corresponds to a periodic annual update on technology and market trends. This Task 5.1, “Procurement independent vendor relations and market watch”, corresponds to the first objective of Work Package 5. It is thus the continuation of a well-established effort, using assessment of the HPC market based on market surveys, supercomputing conferences, and exchanges with vendors and between experts involved in the work package. Trends and innovations based on the work of prototyping activities in previous PRACE projects are also exploited, as well as the observation of current or new technological R&D projects, such as the PRACE-3IP PCP, the Human Brain Project PCP, FP7 Exascale projects and Horizon 2020 FETHPC1-2014 and follow-ups in future Work Programmes