Showcasing Multi-Tenant HPC at SC24

This year, members of SealingTech attended the Supercomputing Conference 2024 (SC24) in Atlanta, Georgia. We also got to showcase our latest defensive solution: Multi-Tenant HPC and demonstrate how it’s enabling multi-tenancy in high-risk environments.  

Part of the SC24 SealingTech team. From left to right, Spencer Shimko, Courtney Duggan, Brittany Phillips, David Wagenheim, and Jorge Riaza Giraldo.

Our team at the conference, comprised of experts well-versed in HPC security technical knowledge, SELinux policy development and analysis, and cross domain solutions (CDSs), included SealingTech’s Mission Director, Kathy Shonaiya and Technical Director, Spencer Shimko. 

“The highlight for me,” Kathy says, “was attending the ‘Third International Workshop on Cybersecurity in High Performance Computing (S-HPC 2024).’ Of particular interest was the Panel: HPC Security Guidance, Challenges and Future Direction where members of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) HPC Security Working Group (HPCSec-WG) reflected on the impact of NIST 800-223 (Feb 2024) during its first year of publication. They shared plans for NIST 800-224, an HPC specific overlay for NIST 800-53 Rev 5 based on the content in the 800-223. A draft of which will be released in the second quarter of 2025. This tailored overlay will refine the 800-53 controls tailoring them for HPCs. While not applicable in every environment, this is a huge step forward for the assessment side of HPC.” 

“I agree, says Spencer, “there seems to be a growing adoption of the NIST 800-223. It’s interesting to see how other organizations prioritize their security in the world. We don’t often get exposed to the larger picture, so this was a good chance to witness those perspectives. I also enjoyed the opportunity to connect with industry experts and peers who are as passionate about HPC security as we are. We got a chance to forge new relationships and catch up with current ones. Our team took advantage of any opportunity to meet with our customers and vendors to discuss future projects, including ones that would greatly benefit from our multi-tenant capabilities.” 

Kathy adds, “We accompanied our customers to several meetings to help product vendors understand how customer requirements may drive updates to their products. I also learned how we can leverage our existing NIST HPC Security Working Group membership to keep pace with these evolving standards while helping our customers understand and plan for what’s coming.” 

“It was good to hear about the broader concerns in the HPC community around both security and general use cases that SealingTech could be well-positioned to support in the future,” says Spencer. 

Saving customers time and resources 

Spencer Shimko’s presentation at SC24.

At the conference, Spencer presented: “Enabling Multi-Tenancy in High-Risk Environments.” He demonstrated how SealingTech’s multi-tenant HPC capability helps various industries like healthcare, finance, education, and engineering increase utilization in environments subjected to stringent regulatory requirements like PHI, HIPAA, Sox compliance, and more. Through this advanced innovation, customers can process data that presents a high-risk to the nation or their own organization if compromised by enabling concurrent and secure sharing of HPC resources across tenants without having to take it offline. 

“I think the presentation was effective in making the capabilities more relevant to other industries,” he says. “We had some follow-up questions from US Government entities, vendors producing solutions that necessitate HPC and academia. Other questions included how SealingTech is helping to address security controls, how we can help a healthcare research institute achieve multi-tenancy, what access control features we utilize, and what backend subsystems we support/integrate with. They were happy to hear how our multi-tenant HPC capability could work equally well for their particular situation.” 

“It was great to show current and prospective customers how HPC security challenges need not stall their productivity,” adds Kathy. “With this new capability, we’re single-handedly solving the low-utilization problem that’s plaguing legacy methods used by organizations today. Saving them valuable time and resources were benefits that resonated with everybody.” 

Interested in learning more about our Multi-Tenant HPC capability and how it can work for your organization? Schedule a consultation today.