A Cost-benefit Look at Open-source vs. Commercial HPC Workload Managers

High-performance computing (HPC) fuels scientific discovery and innovation across multiple industries. The combination of large datasets, advanced simulation techniques, and machine learning helps organizations generate insights that would not be possible without modern HPC infrastructure. Given HPC’s outsized role in driving business results, selecting the right management software is critical. This is especially true in commercial organizations where time is money. In this paper, we discuss the pros and cons of open-source software in HPC and make the case for commercial workload management. While open-source workload managers are fine in some situations, they can present disadvantages in production environments.