HPC Solution Design
HPC solution design starts with the workload
We design vendor-agnostic HPC architectures around your workloads, workflows and operational requirements.
Workloads & requirements
Applications, scaling behaviour, memory, I/O, licensing and operational requirements.
Compute & architecture
Compute, accelerators, interconnect and workload fit across on-premises, cloud and hybrid.
Data & scheduling
Storage tiers, data movement, schedulers, queue policies and resource utilisation.
Resilience & scale
Security, failure domains, monitoring, configuration baselines and future scaling.
What Happens When HPC Is Designed in Isolation:
HPC designed around hardware rather than real workloads can create imbalance across the entire environment.
Over-provisioned infrastructure
Minimize processing errors and streamline operations.
Workflow bottlenecks
I/O contention, inefficient data movement and fragmented workflows.
Poor deployment fit
Cloud and hybrid architectures misaligned with workload and data requirements.
Unpredictable performance
Queue delays, poor utilisation and inconsistent application performance.
Application Expertise
The applications you run directly influence your HPC infrastructure requirements. Our consultants’ experience across a wide range of commercial and open-source applications helps inform decisions around compute architecture, memory, storage, networking and system scalability.
Applications we have experience with include:
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
Fluent, STAR-CCM+, OpenFOAM
Structural Analysis
Abaqus, LS-DYNA, Ansys Mechanical
Molecular Dynamics
GROMACS, NAMD
Computational Chemistry
CP2K, NWChem
AI & Machine Learning
PyTorch, TensorFlow
Materials Science
VASP, Quantum ESPRESSO
Weather & Climate Modelling
WRF
Mathematical Computing
MATLAB
Solution Design Case Study
Designing Manchester Met’s first centralised HPC environment
Red Oak worked with Manchester Metropolitan University to define the performance, security, user and operational requirements for its new cloud HPC environment.
Using these requirements, we designed an Azure architecture covering compute, storage, networking and job scheduling, providing a blueprint for a secure, scalable HPC environment.
Red Oak Consulting has been instrumental in getting us up to speed, helping us design and deploy an HPC solution that we can genuinely manage and grow ourselves.”
Matthew Jones
Manchester Metropolitan University
FAQs
Effective solution design starts with understanding what matters most to your organisation, from research capacity and delivery speed to cost control or flexibility. We translate those priorities into a tailored technical architecture, profiling your workloads to design compute, accelerator, storage and data pipelines that reflect how your applications actually run. Every element is engineered around your operating model, performance patterns and business goals.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. The right model depends on where your data sits, how predictable your demand is and what governance or cost constraints apply. We help you weigh performance, flexibility and control to find the balance that fits your workloads and business case.
Future-proofing means designing for evolution, not just today’s requirements. We plan for workload growth, emerging accelerators and hybrid expansion paths so your environment scales predictably without major redesign or disruption.
Related Services
PoCs & Pilots
Test proposed architectures and technologies against representative workloads before progressing to wider deployment.
Managed Services
Ongoing specialist support for HPC environments, covering system management, technical support and continuous operational improvement.
Workload Optimisation
Analyse and optimise workflows across compute, storage, scalability and job scheduling to improve performance and resource utilisation.
Designing a new HPC environment?
Turn your requirements into an HPC architecture built around your workloads, users and operational needs.
