Engility
Breaking Performance Barriers in High Performance Computing

High Performance Computing (HPC) is no longer limited to only the academic and scientific world. It is well suited and steadily being adopted, for defense, space and civilian applications, as well. HPC's democratization has been driven particularly by advances in capability and affordability, including cloud computing, which has given scientists access to supercomputing features at the cost of a few dollars per hour. Engility Corporation provides HPC technology that meets the size, weight, power and cost constraints of critical missions. “We understand a mission objective and apply the technology to solve the problem related to it,” says John P. Hynes, Jr., Engility President and COO.

Based in Chantilly, Virginia, Engility supports science and engineering-focused missions by building and running comprehensive computer models of the Earth and space systems, aerospace systems, computational chemistry, biology and materials science on some of the largest computers currently available. These models are designed by large teams, consisting of process scientists specialized in various computational technology areas; algorithm developers building representations of these processes using numerical methods such as finite-volume; and computational experts working toward efficient execution of these codes on massively parallel HPC architectures. “If you look at the name of our company, it’s a combination of Engineering and Agility, so that is us; we are engineered to make a difference. HPC is a core part of our company and we are committed to it,” says John.

Engility’s HPC Center of Excellence brings a unique understanding of the full HPC software and hard-ware lifecycle, regardless of the lifecycle phase solution customers need – acquisition, development, integration and operations. Engility provides deep and broad mission knowledge that allows customers to define, acquire and operate their HPC systems in a way that they get the best value for their resources.

From a development perspective, Engility provides a bridge between the mission science and computer science that serves as a force multiplier for over 3,000 Department of Defense HPC users.

If you look at the name of our company, it’s a combination of Engineering and Agility, so that is us; we are engineered to make a difference

Engility delivers effective solutions because they pair the brilliance of the mission scientist with the computational expertise to enable the science and engineering models to most effectively and efficiently define and use HPC resources.

An operational example is Engility’s support to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). GFDL provides leading edge systems and models that advance climate and weather forecasting. Engility also support over 2,200 users of the Food and Drug Administration’s scientific computing systems, who are focused on critical health and safety issues including genomics analyses for rapid response in the face of emerging food safety concerns. Using HPC, scientists can quickly identify the source of food contamination outbreaks that might come from farms, fisheries, processing plants, or supermarkets so that products can be recalled and outbreaks can be stopped before becoming widespread.

Engility serves clients varying from defense to intelligence to civilian. The company also supplies space organizations with supporting space mission services. “Our computer models and simulations reduce the time and expense of designing, optimizing and characterizing complex systems and enable decision-makers to prioritize design tradeoffs and to make informed acquisition decisions,” states John.

Talking about the road ahead, John says, “We are seeing stability in government budgets and accordingly will plan to expand our services and capabilities across other parts of the market, including NASA in particular.”