January 2011

Den Rode Paraplay, 1888, by Danish Artist Peder Monsted (1859-1941)

The race to exascale is starting to present some interesting questions that go way beyond technology discussions. At the very core of recent deep thinking, is the discussion of responsibility, accountability and funding. The R&D expense associated with exascale will be staggering. What price are we willing to pay, real dollars and non-monetary? And who's going to foot the bill? Government agencies? Private industry? Which is a heavier burden, responsibility to taxpayers, or responsibility to shareholders? And even deeper than that discussion: should we even be pursuing exascale at such an aggressive rate in order to hit a pre-determined milestone? To discuss many of these questions, The Exascale Report sat down with one of our industry's true thought leaders — a man who knows a lot about shareholder accountability — Pete Ungaro, CEO of Cray.

Special Multimedia Feature

 

Learning From The Past; Planning For The Future

by Mike Bernhardt

Carta Marina. 16th century. Created by Olaus Magnus. The earliest map of the Nordic Countries - incorrectly depicting the geography - because the map was based on stories and memories from sailors rather than any calculations.

Are we moving in the right direction to achieve necessary levels of global collaboration on exascale development? Is 2018 an achievable goal? Are China, Europe and the rest of the world outpacing the U.S. with technology research? Are we doing enough? What lessons are we learning and, more importantly, are we using what we've learned to make better decisions?

In this feature interview, Dave Turek, Vice President of Deep Computing at IBM, dives into some of today's most pressing questions to give us a thought provoking, balanced perspective. Dave explores topics from 'global collaboration', thoughts on 'heterogeneous or homogeneous systems' and his own personal observations on what the scientific computing can do today - and over the next seven years - to prepare for the exascale systems of tomorrow.

Special Multimedia Feature

 

InfiniBand on the Road to Exascale Computing

by Lloyd Dickman

The Road Menders, Vincent Van Gogh (Saint-Rémy: November, 1889).

InfiniBand has been making remarkable progress in HPC, as evidenced by its growth in the Top500 rankings of the highest performing computers. It already plays an important role at the petascale. But what role will InfiniBand play as we move closer to exascale systems? In this article, Lloyd Dickman, CTO for InfiniBand Products in QLogic's Network Solutions Group, and an active member of the InfiniBand Trade Association, presents an interesting perspective of InfiniBand today — and as part of exascale development.
 
As the global HPC community forms circles of opinion on the challenges of making exascale a reality, it seems 'multicore optimization' -- at some level -- will have to be a key ingredient. How do you define 'multicore optimization', and what role do you see this technology playing in the development of production exascale systems?
 

Is Exascale On Track?

by Mike Bernhardt

When companies are developing their strategic investment plans, they often turn to the industry analysts as a sounding board and sanity check. The industry analysts can offer a unique, big-picture perspective gathered from their work with numerous companies and across multiple countries. They not only serve as historians to record and analyze what happened in previous years, but they also help us prepare for new trends and market conditions.

The Exascale Report caught up with Earl Joseph, a Vice President at IDC and the Executive Director of the HPC User Forum to get his perspective on what's really going on with exascale development.

 

Exascale at the Expense of Basic Research?

by Mike Bernhardt

One thing that rings loud and clear as I talk with many of the community leaders regarding exascale is that everyone has an opinion. I write this not to present an opinion — but to raise a concern. I recently tried to absorb at least some of the content in the recent report, “Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology,” prepared by The President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

This particular line, from page XIII of the Executive Report section, jumped out at me. “At the same time, new investments must not supplant continued investment in important core areas such as high performance computing, scalable systems and networking, software creation and evolution, and algorithms, in which government-funded research is making important progress.”

 

Join the Discussion

The Exascale Report encourages members of the HPC community to contribute articles dealing with key issues and technologies associated with the drive to develop exascale systems. Please submit a brief (150-250 word abstract) to idea@theexascalereport.com describing your proposed topic. We welcome original submissions from HPC practitioners. Articles will be peer reviewed.

Please note that success stories, white papers, press releases and other marketing communications collateral or public relations materials are not what we are looking for.