Shape the future of Software services

We have previously touched on the idea of purchasing cycles of compute time from a service provider as a way for small or mid size businesses to do simulations or data analysis without investing in infrastructure. This is also a useful model for large companies who need a way to manage peak flow, or even as a "try before you buy" model to prove out ROI. There is a review article in the works comparing/contrasting the different service providers to help you better make decisions. Almost all of these vendors provide raw compute cycles, you have to provide the software and the expert domain knowledge. Yesterday here at SC08 I had the chance to meet and talk with a company who is taking a slightly different approach. Cycle Computing is not just selling raw compute cycles, they are selling HPC software runs as a service. They work with ISVs, purchase appropriate software licenses and make sure the software runs on the hardware. All you have to do is supply data through the secured pipe and receive results. Application interfaces can current be SSH, a RESTful web interface, or even a VPN into your business network.

They have been successful with this model in the financial and pharmaceutical verticals and are looking to expand into other areas of manufacturing. What are the implications of this for your manufacturing businesses? HPC results without the HPC headaches. No hardware to purchase, install, configure and administer. No software license purchases, management or renewals. No long term contracts for software services you only use twice a year-- pay only for the compute cycles you actually use. What will it take to make this a winner? If the services,speed and price are right, this could be a huge win for many businesses. And at this point in time, you have the ability to help shape the service into something that works for you. Cycle computing is looking for feedback on what software packages you would make the best use of. I say this is your time to give them feedback on all points of the service. What is your price point requirement? (I do not think that Free is an option at this point....) What are the technical requirements/security considerations that would make or break this as you try to sell it to your management? You can comment below and let them know what your dream HPC software service would look like.

Hidden Gems- bread crumbs to a vision?

Every day in almost every plant in the US, Dell provides great value. There are low cost, high efficiency Dell computers assisting us in running plant floor systems better spread all over the world. I was then, excited to hear that Michael Dell, CEO of Dell computers was giving the opening keynote at SC08 here in Austin. Perhaps that is also the reason for the deepness of my disappointment in the talk (you can see my stream of consciousness thoughts on the keynote as it was going by using this Twitter RSS feed).
Don't get me wrong, it was entertaining. The art department at Dell creates gorgeous slides. More importantly, buried in amongst the 40 minute Dell commercial, there were some hidden gems for the folks in manufacturing to contemplate. While I do not think that these qualify a a true vision, they are perhaps breadcrumbs on the path to having a vision for HPC. Consider the following points:

Dell is predicting that by 2010 processors will contain 80+ cores. If you think that the software pricing model for your plant floor software and back end databases is a budget busting nightmare with dual or quad core processors now, imagine what will happen in a few years when the smallest processors have 20 or so cores on them and high end processors are 80 cores. Now is the time for manufacturers as a group to start working with vendors to get the software pricing problem fixed.

Michael Dell admitted that the recent "core war" started recently and escalated fast, but he was very firm in the idea that it was not going to end soon. Software is the big gap in all of this. If super multi-core machines are going to be available on the plant floor soon, which vendors are poising themselves to take advantage of that power? Even though tasks like scheduling could be written to take advantage of parallel computing power, I do not know of any out of the box programs that do. I certainly can not know everything, so please comment if you know of some. Yes, there are companies out there (FedEx comes to mind first) who are writing custom algorithms and software, but that requires a huge investment in time, talent and money. I will point out to the plant floor software vendors amongst us Michael Dell's thoughts "..there is a need for petascale software to take advantage of all of this computing hardware .....if you can be the first to figure out a way to use all this hardware power, there is a lot of financial advantage to be made".

It was pointed out how deeply prices for compute power have dropped in the last 5 years. In 2003, 2 teraflops of compute power cost roughly a million dollars. That put 2 teraflop questions firmly out of reach for most manufacturers. The benefit gained was not worth adding a million dollars to production costs. Today, you can get 25 teraflops for a million dollars. In the current economy, you are even less likely to want to add a million dollars to production costs- but that scale means that for at most 80 thousand dollars, you can get 2 teraflops of compute power.
What 2 teraflop questions/problems are you not tackling because you are still thinking in terms of 2003 pricing? What simulations or real time data analysis could be giving you a competitive edge, that you have not even considered for fear of sticker shock??

I am off to try to set up some one on one time with Dell's manufacturing outreach folks. If you have specific questions for Dell related to their use in manufacturing, comment them below so I can get responses for you. Perhaps they will be able to give me more interesting insights in the vision at Dell, since Mike missed the mark.

Why do you use parallel programming- or not?

There are lots of reasons people choose to use parallel programming- not all of them wise. This article by Michael Wolfe gives excellent insight into the current status of parallel algorithms and a call for better education of programmers in the field. What criteria do you use when deciding if a problem will benefit from the use of parallel programming? How do you pick the staff who will solve the problems?