A high performance (HPC) system is described. The system includes a plurality of compute nodes, each comprising a network interface having a first media access control (MAC) address and a management controller having a second MAC address, a plurality of switches, coupled to the plurality of compute nodes, each including one or more ports and a head node, communicatively coupled to the plurality of switches, comprising one or more processors to discover a first of the plurality of compute nodes, including facilitating installation of a boot file at the first compute node, initiate a boot operation at the first compute node using the boot file, harvesting switch port locations from the plurality of switches and detecting a location of the first compute node within the network based on determining one or more switch port locations associated with the first MAC address of the first compute node.