Jason Stamper's Blog: July 2009 Archives

Supercomputer produces pretty picture
July 31, 2009

Take a butcher's at the below: pretty, isn't it? It's the visualisation of a supernova performed on a supercomputer in the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

What's perhaps more interesting though than the fact a multi-million dollar computer can draw a pretty picture, is that it's all now being drawn on the supercomputer itself, rather than the numbers crunched and then visualised using different software on graphics processing units.

To produce the image on Argonne’s Blue Gene/P supercomputer, 160,000 computing cores all work together in parallel. Today’s typical laptop, by comparison, has two cores. In fact if you wanted to try and do this kind of picture on a typical home PC, it would take you three years just to download the data.

The latest volume rendering techniques being used by Argonne can be used to make sense of the billions of tiny points of data collected from an X-ray, MRI, or a researcher’s simulation.

Usually, the supercomputer’s work stops once the data ha­s been gathered, and the data is sent to a set of graphics processors (GPUs), which create the final visualizations.

But the driving commercial force behind developing GPUs has been the video game industry, so GPUs aren’t always well suited for scientific tasks. In addition, the sheer amount of data that has to be transferred from location to location eats up valuable time and disk space.

“It’s so much data that we can’t easily ask all of the questions that we want to ask: each new answer creates new questions and it just takes too much time to move the data from one calculation to the next,” said Mark Hereld, who leads the visualization and analysis efforts at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. “That drives us to look for better and more efficient ways to organize our computational work.”

Argonne researchers wanted to know if they could improve performance by skipping the transfer to the GPUs and instead performing the visualizations right there on the supercomputer. They tested the technique on a set of astrophysics data and found that they could indeed increase the efficiency of the operation.

“We were able to scale up to large problem sizes of over 80 billion voxels per time step and generated images up to 16 megapixels,” said Tom Peterka, a postdoctoral appointee in Argonne’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division.

So it really is more than just a pretty picture: it's something of a breakthrough in supercomputer visualisations.

Read more about it here.

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

CBR Vodcast: Beyond Virtualisation to Cloud Computing
July 23, 2009

In this two-part vodcast, I talk to Nick Drabble, Dynamic Infrastructure Leader in IBM's Software Group, about taking the next steps after virtualisation and the move towards cloud computing.

IBM's Nick Drabble.

Nick Drabble is Dynamic Infrastructure Leader in IBM's Software Group in the UK & Ireland. In Part 1 of the vodcast, I started by asking him what IBM means when it talks about Dynamic Infrastructure. We then discuss the role of virtualisation within this Dynamic Infrastructure, and how companies can best overcome the challenges that analysts say still hamper virtualisation projects.

In Part 2, we move on to discuss the emergent paradigm of cloud computing, and where Drabble believes it will have greatest impact in the enterprise. I also find out a little more about the similarities between cloud computing and what IBM has for some time called On Demand computing.

You can stream them in Windows Media format by clicking on the links below, or right-click to save them to your desktop.

Part 1: Beyond Virtualisation

Part 2: Cloud Computing

For those who prefer to download the files in MP4 format to play on their iPod or whatever, you can download those by right-clicking on these links:

Part 1: Beyond Virtualisation (MP4, Zip file)

Part 2: Cloud Computing (MP4, zip file)

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 10:05 AM | Comments (0)

Bartz puts brave face on Yahoo numbers
July 22, 2009

Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz is trying to keep upbeat about Yahoo's prospects, as its latest results continued to disappoint and the firm remains the subject of speculation about a Microsoft deal.

I met and profiled Carol Bartz a couple of years back, when she was CEO of CAD vendor Autodesk. Of all the CEOs I have interviewed, I found her among the most impressive: business acumen, technology expertise and a very human touch are three qualities you don't often find in one leader.

Carol Bartz: from computer science at the University of Wisconsin to Yahoo CEO (via DEC, Sun and Autodesk).

But all of Bartz's qualities will surely be called on now, as Yahoo reported quarterly results down 13% to $1.57bn, and profits down 25% to $76m.

But Bartz feels the company is improving: "I'm pleased with our results this past quarter," she said. "We established a clear, simple vision to be the centre of people's lives online, and we're backing that vision with important initiatives to create 'wow' experiences for our users."

With rival Google seeing flat revenues in its latest quarter but profits up 18%, the pressure is definitely on Bartz to either get the numbers heading in the right direction within the next two quarters, or to reconsider some kind of deal with Microsoft, which tried to buy the firm last year.

Co-founder Jerry Yang stepped aside as CEO at Yahoo in January to be replaced by Bartz, who was CEO at Autodesk for 14 years. Yang faced criticism from some shareholders for not accepting the $45bn Microsoft deal. The latest rumour is that Microsoft could take control of Yahoo's search engine for $3bn.

Either way, one thing Bartz doesn't have right now is time: shareholders have lost patience. Its stock is down 1.5% on the results announcement, taking another $350m off its market cap.

My profile of Carol Bartz is here.

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 12:42 PM | Comments (0)

Cisco takes over 2012 Olympics role from Nortel
July 11, 2009

So Cisco has become Official Network Infrastructure Supporter for the London 2012 Olympics, in a tier two deal which commences with immediate effect, taking over the contract from Nortel.

It doesn't come as a huge surprise, as in January this year Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in both the US and Canada, and shortly after put its UK business into administration to boot.

Based in Toronto and still ranked as the biggest maker of telephone equipment in North America, Nortel said the moves were designed to give it breathing space to deal with the deteriorated environment in which it finds itself.

In a statement on Friday, the London 2012 Organising Committee (Locog) said it had ended its contract with the infrastructure supplier "on good terms".

"Technology for the Games is a huge undertaking with a fixed deadline, relying on finalising the design and building of systems now," Locog's statement read. "In order to deliver 'the most connected Games possible', Locog felt it was vital to work with a single business to cover the entire network infrastructure. As a result, Locog and Nortel amicably decided to bring the current agreement to an end."

Phil Smith, CEO, Cisco UK and Ireland said: “We are delighted to be working with LOCOG to provide the network infrastructure for London 2012. In the UK, Cisco enables businesses, public services and ultimately communities to enhance the way they operate. We will work hard to deliver the infrastructure for London 2012, which promises to be the most connected Games ever.”

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 07:01 AM | Comments (0)

Exclusive Progress Software CEO Podcast: Iona and Beyond
July 10, 2009

I recently caught up with Rick Reidy, who was made president and CEO of application development, SOA management and integration firm Progress Software in March this year. Reidy succeeded Joseph Alsop, who co-founded the company in 1981 and had led it ever since.

With the transition coming only around six months after Progress acquired fellow middleware firm Iona for $162m, there were conspiracy theorists who wondered whether Alsop and the board had not seen eye to eye on the deal, leading to them parting company.

In this two-part podcast, I start by asking Reidy about the timing of that leadership transition. In Part 2, I ask about Reidy's initiatives at Progress, what he means by 'One Progress', and how he hopes to get the firm to over $1bn in the next five or so years.

I close the podcast by asking Reidy how he sees Progress playing in the new cloud computing ecosystem. The background hustle and bustle comes courtesy of the rather fine lounge in The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner.

Listen to Part 1 here.

Part 2 is here.

Both are in the Windows Media (.wma) format.

Rick Reidy, Progress Software's president and CEO.

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

No, cloud computing isn’t SaaS
July 09, 2009

It seems there’s still a great deal of confusion about the similarities between cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS). ST Consulting uses the terms interchangeably in this opinion piece for AccountingWeb, for instance.

Some examples from that STC article:

+ "Cloud Computing or software as a service (SaaS) is being touted as the pay-as-you-grow solution to the current economic problems."

+ "Good quality broadband internet provision has made it possible to offer software as a service - or what is now known as the Cloud Computing model."

+ "The Cloud Computing market is in its infancy. Suddenly organisations that would never normally be at the forefront of technology adoption are rushing headlong into SaaS."

In my view, this is a big mistake, and only adds to the confusion surrounding cloud computing. I tried to cut through the hype and come to some proper definitions in this recent special report. William Fellows, analyst at The 451, sums it up about as succinctly as anyone when he describes it not as software as a service, but 'IT as a service'.

Anyone still in any doubt after reading my articles in this special report may perhaps also be interested in a virtual conference all about cloud computing coming up in October – I’m giving the opening address.

www.cloudadoptionarena.com
VIBevents are delighted to be launching the industry’s first international virtual cloud adoption event which will bring together the leading CIOs, IT Directors and Cloud Experts to share insights on overcoming the risks and reaping the rewards of migrating to the cloud.

The conference will run live over internet over on October 20th – 21st, with real time Q&A sessions, presentations and an exhibition hall featuring the leading cloud solution providers. Attendees from end user companies can attend free of charge and will be able to log in and out as they please over the time period saving valuable expenditure and time out of the office.

The expert speaker line up at the Cloud Adoption Arena will guide you through everything you need to know to fully understand the opportunities of cloud computing for your business. Attending this event will enable you to overcome uncertainty, mitigate risk and successfully add capacity and service on demand…. All from the comfort of your own computer!

With end-user case studies and conference tracks designed specifically for Start-ups, SME’S, Enterprises and the Public Sector; this virtual event must not be missed.

Our panel of speakers providing end user case studies include, Tesco, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, CBR, Californian Public Utilities Commission, Imperial College London and Telegraph Media Group, see the full line up at www.cloudadoptionarena.com

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Posted by Jason Stamper on 12:32 PM | Comments (2)