Computational Evaluation of Commercial Cloud HPC with a Global Atmospheric Model

Recent updates to the U.S. Navy numerical weather prediction model resulted in a significant increase in computational requirements for future operational systems. Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is modernizing operational control of these systems by pursuing cloud computing and other distributed opportunities to leverage the redundancy and potential cost-savings of providers.

To support the DoD’s goals, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) will describe recent efforts to evaluate performance of four computing platforms – an on-premises system and three cloud providers – offering a range of flexibility to support the production demand of their simulations. NRL assessed computational performance by using the U.S. Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) and will highlight the advantages and limits presently offered by different platforms and will discuss how this impacts their future operational HPC deployments.