IBM and ASTRON provide microserver prototypes to three Dutch partners

<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5602/15548194195_2ac52e0896_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5602/15548194195_2ac52e0896_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4c4c4c; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><b>One 64-bit Microserver</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When it goes live by 2024, the <a href="https://www.skatelescope.org/">Square Kilometre Array</a> (SKA) telescope will collect a deluge of radio signals from deep space. More specifically, every day thousands of antennas located in southern Africa and Australia will collectively gather 14 exabytes of data and store one petabyte. The SKA has been called "<a href="http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2013/03/the-square-kilometer-array-the-world%E2%80%99s-ultimate-big-data-challenge.html" target="_blank">the ultimate Big Data challenge</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">."</span></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">he distributed design of the SKA<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> has</span> a total antenna area of one square kilometer. <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A</span>nd due to the large volume of <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>ig <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d</span>ata it can collect, a high-performance computing architecture<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">–</span> with data transfer links with a capacity that far exceeds current state-of-the-art technology</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">–</span> </span></span> must be developed to manage the process of gathering, storing and analyzing the 13 billion<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>year<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-</span>old data. </span></span><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">One of the key pieces of this high-performance computing architecture is a </span>64-bit <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/labs/zurich/microserver/#fbid=dNtkM5YBiIS">microserver.</a> At 133 × 55 mm<span style="border: 0px; font-size: small; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> the microserver contains all of the essential functions of today’s servers, which are 4 to 10 times larger in size.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Not only is the microserver compact, it is also very energy-efficient. One of its innovations is hot-water cooling, which in addition to keeping the chip operating temperature below 85 degrees C, will also transport electrical power by means of a copper plate. The concept is based on the same technology IBM developed for the <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/superMUC.shtml">SuperMUC</a> supercomputer located outside of Munich, Germany. IBM scientists hope to keep each microserver operating between 35–40 watts including the system on a chip (SOC).</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.zurich.ibm.com/images/ECM/sys/microserver/linpack_300.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.zurich.ibm.com/images/ECM/sys/microserver/linpack_300.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b style="border: 0px; color: #4c4c4c; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">8 cell-phone sized microservers <br />in a small package.</b></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">While the microserver has been demonstrated at conferences, including CeBIT, and this week at SC15 in Austin, IBM and ASTRON haven't provided any to external parties until now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Earlier today at the <a href="http://www.dome-exascale.nl/">ASTRON & IBM Centre for Exascale Technology</a> in Dwingeloo, Netherlands, scientists and engineers from the two groups provided three micro servers to <a href="https://www.icdrachten.nl/bedrijven/philips">Philips Drachten</a>, <a href="http://www.sensorcity.nl/">Sensor City Assen</a> and the <a href="https://www.tue.nl/en/">Technical University of Eindhoven</a>.</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Philips Drachten</span></span><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> will focus on integrating the microserver in the smart factory of the future, also known as Industry 4.0. Based on a future where robots can see, hear and feel, the microserver would be invaluable to exchange all that unstructured data fast to make the right decisions.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">Sensor City Assen plans to use the microserver in places where an ordinary server does not fit<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in order</span> to analyze large amounts of data, directly. Think of noise, CO₂ emissions and traffic flow, for instance.</span></span></span><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>And finally, the Technical University of Eindhoven </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">will integrate the microserver into a new method expected to enable data centers to operate faster and greener.</span></span><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--></span></div><div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 6px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span lang="EN" style="border: none;"><br /><!--[endif]--></span><!--EndFragment--></div><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2Fblogger.g%3FblogID%3D3821464279005499761%23editor%2Fsrc%3Ddashboard&media=https%3A%2F%2Fc2.staticflickr.com%2F6%2F5602%2F15548194195_2ac52e0896_z.jpg&xm=h&xv=sa1.37.01&xuid=tYDKQnV6ndWa&description=" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; left: 33px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; top: 24px; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2Fblogger.g%3FblogID%3D3821464279005499761%23editor%2Fsrc%3Ddashboard&media=https%3A%2F%2Fc2.staticflickr.com%2F6%2F5602%2F15548194195_2ac52e0896_z.jpg&xm=h&xv=sa1.37.01&xuid=tYDKQnV6ndWa&description=" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; left: 33px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; top: 24px; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a>

ASTRON DOME microserver IBM and ASTRON provide microserver prototypes to three Dutch partners

One 64-bit Microserver When it goes live by 2024, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will collect a deluge of radio signals from de...

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Meet an IBM Researcher: Matthieu Simeoni

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdd6Vl57YPO2k4VirhOoGrsMX89tzxpJ5Dp8IFNNtdDTiaD3e2shqtXCvTLsp0T_QfWuE2JOtTWlkyaIS0yFUdm2DCLDtzbjIdi_fR0vKv9DU6N3_EWQp_1ZHXwPy9xMaGNNQYBsnww-s/s1600/IMG_1826+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdd6Vl57YPO2k4VirhOoGrsMX89tzxpJ5Dp8IFNNtdDTiaD3e2shqtXCvTLsp0T_QfWuE2JOtTWlkyaIS0yFUdm2DCLDtzbjIdi_fR0vKv9DU6N3_EWQp_1ZHXwPy9xMaGNNQYBsnww-s/s320/IMG_1826+%25281%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="color: #0433ff; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Name: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieusimeoni">Matthieu Simeoni</a></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Location: IBM Research - Zurich</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nationality: French</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Focus: Big Data Analytics</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 2012, IBM and ASTRON, The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, embarked on an ambitious project they named <a href="http://www.zurich.ibm.com/news/12/dome.html">DOME</a> to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems targeted for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope.</span><br /><a name="more"></a></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Due to the petabytes of data collected by the SKA from deep space the DOME scientists are investigating emerging technologies including photonics, phase change memory, and streaming analytics that will be required to read, store and analyze all the raw data that will be collected daily. Linking everything are the algorithms themselves, and what works in one instance does not necessarily scale. Thus one team takes on the challenge of fundamentally changing the data acquisition and processing, making the data less astronomic (in quantity) as it were, with already quite some success.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the scientists on this team is Matthieu Simeoni who recently was recognized with the IBM Research Prize in Computational Science for his master thesis, undertaken at EPFL. This prize promotes research in computational sciences and recognizes outstanding projects focused on advanced modelling and simulation methods or their applications to important topics in diverse areas of science (physics, chemistry, and biology) and engineering.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I recently spoke with him about his research.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Congratulations on your award. Can you tell me what it recognizes?</span></b></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b></b><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Matthieu Simeoni (MS): </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The DOME project is made up of several work packages including "Novel Algorithms", which is focused on developing efficient algorithms for the processing of the astronomical amount of data produced by modern radio interferometers. This data, not including the noise, is coming from the original Big Bang from 13 billion years ago and in it lies the answers to fundamental questions about our universe.</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>In my master thesis, we proposed a new imaging pipeline, with higher accuracy and up to 30 times faster than the current imaging pipeline — this is what the award recognized. The imaging pipeline was tested in realistic scenarios, using simulated data from the LOFAR telescope, an SKA pathfinder.</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>As a side note, I didn’t even know I was winning the award until I was called on stage. It was a complete surprise.</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What was the biggest challenge?</span></b></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b></b><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">MS: <i>We started with a clean slate, threw away conventional thinking and targeted what some perceived as radical ideas, but that was the easy part. </i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Astronomers, like most scientists, don’t take change easily and they have been using their current algorithms for decades. So the biggest challenge will be to get them to use our techniques which is why we are building up enough evidence to position it as too good to pass up. And the beauty behind our algorithm is that it scales very nicely. We’ve already had very good success in scaling it over the past four months.</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How did you find out about the DOME project?</span></b></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b></b><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">MS: <i>It’s actually a funny story. Two years ago I, along with three of my classmates from EPFL, <a href="http://actu.epfl.ch/news/mathumanitarian-games/">organized a solidarity trip</a> to South Africa. The goal was to go and meet children from impoverished communities to teach them mathematics using games and activities, in the hope that maybe we could inspire them for the future. You can watch a video of our trip <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF7E0XYa9Ck">here</a><span style="line-height: normal;">.</span></i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>During one of our days off, 24 EPFL students took a ride to the Meerkat telescope construction site, in the desolated but incredibly beautiful region of the Northern Cape, at more than 650 km from the city of Cape Town. I was completely fascinated with the technology.</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><i style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></i></div><div style="line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A few months after this life-changing experience, I met IBM scientist <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/matteo-cossale/60/545/32">Matteo Cossale</a>, who is working on the microservers for the DOME project and he told me about IBM’s involvement. I applied right away and spoke with IBM scientist <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-hurley/1/420/716">Paul Hurley</a> who eventually found a position for me on the team. </span></i></div><div><br /></div>

ASTRON DOME IBM Research - Zurich SKA Meet an IBM Researcher: Matthieu Simeoni

Name: Matthieu Simeoni Location: IBM Research - Zurich Nationality: French Focus: Big Data Analytics In 2012, IBM and ASTRON, The Netherland...

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