Singularity is the most widely used container solution in high-performance computing (HPC). Enterprise users interested in AI, Deep Learning, compute drive analytics, and IOT are increasingly demanding HPC-like resources. Singularity has many features that make it the preferred container solution for this new type of “Enterprise Performance Computing” (EPC) workload. Instead of a layered filesystem, a Singularity container is stored in a single file. This simplifies the container management lifecycle and facilitates features such as image signing and encryption to produce trusted containers.
At runtime, Singularity blurs the lines between the container and the host system allowing users to read and write persistent data and leverage hardware like GPUs and Infiniband with ease. The Singularity security model is also unique among container solutions. Users build containers on resources they control or using a service like Singularity Hub. Then they move their containers to a production environment where they may or may not have administrative access and the Linux kernel enforces privileges as it does with any other application. These features make Singularity a simple, secure container solution perfect for HPC and EPC workloads.
