  A new class of Second generation high-performance computing applications with
heterogeneous, dynamic and data-intensive properties have an extended set of
requirements, which cover application deployment, resource allocation,
-control, and I/O scheduling. These requirements are not met by the current
production HPC platform models and policies. This results in a loss of
opportunity, productivity and innovation for new computational methods and
tools. It also decreases effective system utilization for platform providers
due to unsupervised workarounds and rogue resource management strategies
implemented in application space. In this paper we critically discuss the
dominant HPC platform model and describe the challenges it creates for second
generation applications because of its asymmetric resource view, interfaces and
software deployment policies. We present an extended, more symmetric and
application-centric platform model that adds decentralized deployment,
introspection, bidirectional control and information flow and more
comprehensive resource scheduling. We describe cHPC: an early prototype of a
non-disruptive implementation based on Linux Containers (LXC). It can operate
alongside existing batch queuing systems and exposes a symmetric platform API
without interfering with existing applications and usage modes. We see our
approach as a viable, incremental next step in HPC platform evolution that
benefits applications and platform providers alike. To demonstrate this
further, we layout out a roadmap for future research and experimental
evaluation.
