Infrastructure servers are used to administer the system and provide user access. They are not typically involved in computation, but provide services that are critical to the overall HPC system. These servers are used as management nodes and login nodes. For small-sized clusters, a single physical server can provide the necessary system management functions. Infrastructure servers can use NFS to provide storage services, therefore, they must be configured with additional disk drives or an external storage array. One management server is required for an HPC system to deploy and manage the system. For high-availability (HA) management, two management servers are required. Login nodes are optional, and one login server per 30 to 100 users is recommended. A recommended base configuration for infrastructure servers includes:

• Dell PowerEdge R6515 server
• AMD EPYC 7402P processor
• 128 GB of RAM (8 x 16 GB 3200 MTps DIMMs)
• PERC H330 RAID controller
• 2 x 480 GB Mixed-Use SATA SSD RAID 1
• Dell iDRAC Enterprise
• 2 x 550 W power supply units (PSUs)
• NVIDIA (Mellanox) ConnectX-6 InfiniBand HCA (optional)