IBM Spectrum Symphony - orchestrator dedicated to HTC hybrid multi-cloud applications

Within the family of distributed computing applications, the ones that stand out are those requiring the execution of a large number of independent tasks. Depending on the duration of the computing campaigns, these applications are classified as either Many Task Computing (MTC) for campaigns lasting a few days or High Throughput Computing (HTC) for campaigns lasting weeks or even months. In both cases, tools are needed to organise the execution of tasks on the computing infrastructure. The main functions required are allocating the resources needed to execute a task and scheduling each of these tasks.  

Changes in the economic and regulatory context are imposing new constraints on HTC and MTC users: increasing the amount of computing, reducing computing times and resilience in the face of increasingly complex failures. Cloud computing has a special place among the solutions to these problems. Between the ability to implement computing resources on demand and the possibility of allocating them in distinct geographical areas, we will see that we have the ingredients to enable the on-the-fly extension or replacement of an existing infrastructure.

In this white paper, we will look at how the IBM Spectrum Symphony orchestrator can be used to implement a hybrid cloud solution for HTC/MTC applications. 

Unlike most other tools, such as Microsoft HPC Pack, IBM Spectrum Symphony enables multi-cloud overflow while optimising the use of internal infrastructure.