Cloud
For Google Networks, Predictable Latency Trumps Everything
If you want to build infrastructure that scales larger than a single image of a server and an operating system, you have no choice but to network together multiple machines. …
Connect
Cloud
The Tug Of War Between InfiniBand And Ethernet
If you want to get a microcosmic view of the epic battle between Ethernet and InfiniBand (which also includes Omni-Path no matter how much Intel protests) as they relate to high performance computing in its many modern guises, there is perhaps no better place to look at what Mellanox Technologies is selling. …
Cloud
AWS First Up With Volta GPUs In The Cloud
It must be tough for the hyperscalers that are expanding into public cloud and the public cloud builders that also use their datacenters to run their own businesses to decide whether to hoard all of the new technologies that they can get their hands on for their own benefit, or to make money selling that capacity to others. …
Compute
The Dream Of Software Only Shared Memory Clusters
It is hard to quantify the amount of effort in systems and application software development that has been done precisely because there is no easy, efficient, and cheap way to make a bunch of cheap commodity servers look like one wonking system with a big ole flat memory space that is as easy to program as a PC but which brings to bear all that compute, memory, and I/O of a cluster as a single system image. …
Compute
BSC Builds 21st Century HPC In A 19th Century Cathedral
This summer, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) added to its roster another of the world’s most powerful high performance computing systems. …
Code
Getting With The Program On Software Defined Networks
If the profit margins are under pressure among the switch and router makers of the world, their chief financial officers can probably place a lot of the blame on Nick McKeown and his several partners throughout the years. …
Cloud
Cisco Stretches ACI Network Fabrics, Eases Management
For disaster recovery, political, and organizational reasons, enterprises like to have multiple datacenters, and now they are going hybrid with public cloud capacity adding in the mix. …
Compute
How Oakforest-PACS Outpaced The K Supercomputer
In high performance computing in the public sector, dollars follow teraflops and now petaflops. …
Connect
The Ascendancy Of Ethernet Storage Fabrics
It is hard to remember that for decades, whether a system was large or small, its storage was intricately and inescapably linked to its compute. …
Cloud
A Rare Peek Inside A 400G Cisco Network Chip
Server processor architectures are trying to break the ties between memory and compute to allow the capacities of each to scale independently of each other, but switching and routing giant Cisco Systems has already done this for a high-end switch chip that looks remarkably like a CPU tuned for network processing. …