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Infrastructure servers are used to administer the system and provide user access. They are not typically involved in computation, but they provide services that are critical to the overall HPC system. These servers are used as the management nodes and the login nodes. For small-sized clusters, a single physical server can provide the necessary system management functions. Infrastructure servers can also be used to provide storage services, in which case they must be configured with additional disk drives or an external storage array. One management server is necessary for an HPC system to deploy and manage the system. If high-availability (HA) management functionality is required, two management servers are necessary. Login nodes are optional, and one login server per 30 to 100 users is recommended.
A recommended base configuration for infrastructure servers includes:
The PowerEdge R660 server is suited for this role. Typical HPC clusters only use a few infrastructure servers; therefore, density is not a priority, but manageability is important. The Intel Xeon Gold 6430 processor, with 32 cores per socket, is recommended for this role. If the infrastructure server is used for CPU-intensive tasks, such as compiling software or processing data, a more capable processor might be appropriate. Configuring the server with 256 GB of RAM provided by 16 16 GB DIMMs provides sufficient memory capacity, with minimal cost per GB, while also providing good memory bandwidth. These servers are not expected to perform considerable I/O, so mixed-use SATA SSDs configured with RAID 1 are sufficient for the operating system. For most systems, NDR InfiniBand is the data interconnect of choice. It provides a high-throughput, low-latency fabric for node-to-node communications or to access file storage. Including an InfiniBand HCA in the infrastructure server is optional depending on the system design.