Nimbix is a worldwide provider of purpose-built cloud supercomputing for High Performance Computing (HPC) and accelerated applications.

History edit

Nimbix was established in 2010 by CEO, Steve Hebert[1] and Co-founder Rob Sherrard, in Hebert's Houston, Texas garage, later bringing Leo Reiter on as CTO, in 2013.  The name Nimbix takes the cloud-type nimbus and combines it with IX, an abbreviation for Informatics Xcelerated, because of the planned use of hardware accelerators in the Nimbix Cloud.

High Performance Computing became a requirement for a growing number of businesses at the same time cloud computing was beginning to take off.  Nimbix developed a cloud designed as a supercomputer using computational accelerators to give scientists, developers, and researchers an easy way to launch high performance tasks.

NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) accelerated the initial machines deployed for Nimbix's cloud services, an early implementation of GPU accelerated computing in the Cloud. As machine consumption increased, Hebert and Sherrard ran out of power and space, having filled the garage up with servers, it became a challenge to keep the servers cool. They moved to a large data center in Dallas, Texas, and subsequently moved its headquarters[2] there as well.

Built as a high performance and accelerated Cloud Computing company, Nimbix began with a vision of pioneering the concept of Reconfigurable Cloud Machines, which used the power of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to accelerate computation and processing. That vision remains consistent today.

HPC Acceleration Hardware edit

Nimbix first added GPUs to its data center in 2010. GPUs became an important computing device for accelerating the computation of essential applications and algorithms. As businesses started to require more compute, GPUs would be at the forefront of infrastructure used for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

In 2011, Nimbix introduced FPGAs to their data center. FPGAs, configurable into almost any kind of processing engine, were the ultimate vision for the Nimbix Cloud.  FPGAs offer powerful acceleration and are highly efficient at implementing essential applications needed to process big data.

Partnerships edit

Nimbix was one of NVIDIAs founding cloud partners along with Penguin Computing, Peer 1 Hosting, and Amazon Web Services. Nimbix has partnerships with engineering software companies in the simulation and artificial intelligence spaces, including ANSYS[3], Dassault, COMSOL, MSC Software, migenius[4], and Siemens[5], as well as computer hardware companies including Intel[6], NVIDIA[7], and Xilinx[8].  In early 2019, IBM partnered with Nimbix to help NASA FDL fix a satellite’s instrument using cutting-edge A.I.[9]. In August 2019, Nimbix was announced as the Official Compute Partner of the US Sailing team[10] and Nimbix regularly partners with academic institutions to provide compute resources for research and development, especially in the areas of Robotics and Student Formula SAE teams.  Beginning in March 2020, Nimbix, along with other OpenPOWER Foundation members[11] and cloud computing companies, provided compute resources to help combat COVID-19.

Products and Services Timeline edit

  1. In 2010, Nimbix began as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Cloud Computing provider that enabled scientists, developers, researchers, and engineers, access to the most up-to-date computer hardware, accelerated with GPUs.
  2. In 2012, Nimbix built the Nimbix Accelerated Compute Cloud portal (NACC) delivering the first accelerated Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) supercomputing cloud featuring FPGAs and GPUs.
  3. In 2014, Nimbix launched JARVICE™, a full containerized HPC web service platform that allowed users to deploy and scale Simulation, Big Data, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning applications on the Nimbix Cloud.  
  4. PushToCompute™, a developer pipeline that enables users to create, build, and deploy containerized workflows, was introduced in 2016.
  5. Introduced in 2019, JARVICE™ XE Enterprise Software brings customers the ability to host supercomputing cloud technology in their datacenter to support advanced computing workflows while maintaining the option to burst to any public cloud, including the Nimbix Cloud, for additional resources.
  6. Also introduced in 2019, HyperHub™ HPC application marketplace[12] is a curated point and click catalog with hundreds of accelerated high performance workflows that users can deploy from any device.  With HyperHub and the JARVICE XE Platform, users can customize the compute catalog with their own workflows and applications allowing them to build, deploy and distribute their applications on HyperHub with global visibility and an opportunity to monetize.

Patents edit

  • US 9973566  "Dynamic creation and execution of containerized applications in cloud computing."
  • US 10235207  "Method and system for preemptible coprocessing."
  • US 8775576  "Reconfigurable cloud computing."
  • US 9094404  "Reconfigurable cloud computing."
  • US 9794343  "Reconfigurable cloud computing."
  • US 10389813  "Reconfigurable cloud computing."
  • US 10142417  "System and method for managing heterogeneous data for cloud computing applications."


References edit

  1. ^ Innovates, Dallas (2019-02-06). "26 North Texas Innovators Who Are The Future Today » Dallas Innovates". Dallas Innovates. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  2. ^ "Successes-new". The Dallas Innovation Resource Guide. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  3. ^ "Nimbix, Inc. - HPC Partner | ANSYS". www.ansys.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  4. ^ "High-performance computing use cases and benefits in business". SearchCIO. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  5. ^ "Nimbix | MDX". mdx2.plm.automation.siemens.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  6. ^ "Intel® Data Center Builders - Explore Cross Data Center Solutions". Intel® Data Center Builders. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  7. ^ "Find an NVIDIA Partner | NVIDIA". www.nvidia.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  8. ^ Teich, Paul. "Xilinx To Compete With Intel, NVIDIA On Datacenter AI Acceleration". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
  9. ^ "IBM helped NASA FDL fix a satellite's instrument using cutting-edge A.I." www.digitaltrends.com. Retrieved 2020-05-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Manning, Brittney (2019-08-01). "Nimbix Announced as the Official Compute Partner of the US Sailing Team". US Sailing. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  11. ^ "OpenPOWER Foundation | OpenPOWER Foundation Members Help Combat COVID-19". Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  12. ^ "Bloomberg - Are you a robot?". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2020-04-28. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)