RadioFreeHPC

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the tradeoff between chip performance and security. In the aftermath of the recently disclosed Spectre and Meltdown exploits, Cryptograpy guru Paul Kocher from Rambus is calling for a divergence in processor architectures: The direction that we need to go as an industry though is ...We need to stop trying to build one processor architecture that is great for playing video games and doing wire transfers. We need to build architectures where there are cores and software stacks designed for security that can be slower, that can be simpler, and we need separate ones that are optimized for performance." In this video, Paul Kocher presents: Spectre - Exploiting Speculative Execution. Kocher is the lead author of the paper on the Spectre processor vulnerability. After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at HPE's new CEO, Antonio Neri, a longtime HPE executive who previously served as President of the company. As the number 1 server vendor in the HPC space, this change will be one to watch as we transition to the exascale era in the next five years or so. This transistion comes at an interesting time for HPE, as one of their main competitors, Dell Technologies, is reportedly looking at an IPO or reverse acquisition by VMware.Closer to home in the HPC space: HPE just landed a huge deal at DoD Modernization for four supercomputers totaling 14 Petaflops of performanceHP-CAST host Frank Baetke has left the company and will continue on as Chair of EOFS.After that, we do our Catch of the Week.   Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at NVIDIA's new EULA GeForce Software user license, which prohibits the use of consumer GPUs in the datacenter. We are not looking to beat up on anyone, but our focus is on what limitations this might mean for the industry: No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.When we purchase hardware, aren't we free to use it any way we please? And why do BitCoin miners get a pass during a worldwide GPU shortage? Plus, what do we mean by the word "datacenter?" anyway? Shahin predicts the imminent proliferation of 5G networking capabilities will move computing closer to the edge, thereby changing what we mean by the term "datacenter." After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the recent cryptocurrency crash and why prices for these coins is so volatile. After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at European Commission's recent move to fund exascale development with 1 Billion Euros. While Europe already had a number of exascale initiatives under way, this is a major step forward in that it puts up the money. Under a new legal and funding structure, the Commission’s contribution will be $486 million, or roughly half of the projected EUR 1 Billion total. Before the new structure was put in place, the Commission was effectively limited to contributing only 20 percent of HPC initiatives undertaken with member states.After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the performance ramifications of the Spectre and Meltdown exploits that affect processors from Intel, AMD, and many others. While patches are on the way, the performance hit from these patches could be as high as twenty or thirty percent in some cases. For information and links to useful resources, visit the security research findings page on Intel.com. Downlaod the White Paper: How the Meltdown and Spectre bugs work and what you can do to prevent a performance plummet. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team reviews their list of things Not Invited Back in 2018. Along the way, they share some of their New Year Resolutions. Not Invited Back for 2018: Henry want to see an end to Swatting.Dan wants to see an end to IEEE Floating-Point ArithmeticRich is not inviting PEZY back since their CEO got arrested for padding expense reports and bilking the Japanese government.Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team reviews 2017 Technology Predictions from OrionX. While all the numbers are not in yet, here are the OrionX 2017 predictions look to be true: Azure will grow faster than AWS. While the big three are all growing, Azure seems to be growing at the fastest rate. Microsoft has also made progress in the HPC Cloud space with Azure, including the acquisition of Cycle Computing.More chips than Vegas; riskier too. There are something like 26 AI chips in development, much more than the market can sustain.Server revenue growth will be lower than GDP growth. Quarterly numbers suggest this trend is continuing.ARM server market share will stay below 3 percent. We saw a lot of ARM hardware at SC17, but it will take a while for sales to make a dent in the server market.After that, we do our 2018 Predictions: Henry predicts: Security hacks will get even worse this coming year, with at least five major breaches in 2018.By the end of next year, quantum computing will be on our doorstep with a number of announcements by big vendors and people are going to jump on the bandwagon.Rich predicts: We will finally see an ARM-based system on the TOP500 in 2018. Henry thinks there will be as many as 10.Project Cyclops will actually have an HPCG benchmark in 2018.Cray Inc will be acquired by Microsoft in late 2018. Dan thinks it could be someone else by the end of the year.Shahin predicts: 5G networks will be a game-changer in a number of market segments  in 2018.The future is IoT, Blockchain, AI, and quantum, where machines will do the majority of the creating, consuming, and paying. Humans will not even be in the loop.Dan predicts: More diversity in systems, where the homogeneous datacenter starts to go away with FPGA-accelerated systems purpose-built for specific applications.He also plugs his 12 Days of Christmas Rage video that came out on Christmas Day.Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at all new fast devices that came to market this week for HPC. IBM Power9 Servers are here! Launched this week, the AC922 POWER9 servers will form the basis of the world’s fastest “Coral” supercomputers coming to ORNL and LLNL. Built specifically for compute-intensive AI workloads, the new POWER9 systems are capable of improving the training times of deep learning frameworks by nearly 4x allowing enterprises to build more accurate AI applications, faster. NVIDIA Titan V brings Volta to the Desktop. Not to be outdone, NVIDIA introduced their new high end TITAN V GPU for desktop PCs. Powered by the Volta architecture, TITAN V excels at computational processing for scientific simulation. Its 21.1 billion transistors deliver 110 teraflops of raw horsepower, 9x that of its predecessor, and extreme energy efficiency. Snapdragon 845 chip based on the ARM architecture brings AI inference to your smartphone. With A75 CPU cores clocking as high as 2.8 GHz, the new architecture also enables it to maintain the same level of performance with a 30% power reduction. After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at a controversy stirred up by the recent Irish Supercomputing List. The 9th Irish Supercomputer List was released this week. For the first time, Ireland has four computers ranked on the Top500 and Ireland is now ranked number one globally in terms of number of TOP500 supercomputers per capita. Controversy: Since the publication of the List, a third party called the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) has expressed concerns that the press release issued by the Irish Supercomputing List is misleading. You can read their opinion here.After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team goes over the results of the SC17 Student Cluster Competition. This year, Nanyang Technological University from Singapore took the Top Prize. After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team describes the highlights of SC17 in Denver. Highlights includes the debut of ARM hardware for HPC, a Rasberry Pie Cluster, and pervasive liquid cooling. Other highlights include: Posit Research was there at the Innovation Showcase with an all-new company working to proliferate Unum based computing invented by John Gustafson from A*STAR in Singapore.New high performance interconnects are proliferating with PCIe technologies, Gen-Z, etc.The Student Cluster LINPACK record was smashed this year with 51.8 Teraflops. Nanyang University achieved this record number with the new NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs.After that, we do our catch of the week.Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team reviews the latest TOP500 list in front of a live audience in Denver at SC17. The fiftieth TOP500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world has China overtaking the US in the total number of ranked systems by a margin of 202 to 144. It is the largest number of supercomputers China has ever claimed on the TOP500 ranking, with the US presence shrinking to its lowest level since the list’s inception 25 years ago. Just six months ago, the US led with 169 systems, with China coming in at 160. Despite the reversal of fortunes, the 144 systems claimed by the US gives them a solid second place finish, with Japan in third place with 35, followed by Germany with 20, France with 18, and the UK with 15. China has also overtaken the US in aggregate performance as well. The Asian superpower now claims 35.3 percent of the TOP500 flops, with the US in second place with 29.8 percent. The top 10 systems remain largely unchanged since the June 2017 list, with a couple of notable exceptions. Sunway TaihuLight, a system developed by China’s National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC), and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, maintains its number one ranking for the fourth time, with a High Performance Linpack (HPL) mark of 93.01 petaflops. See our complete coverage of SC17 Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team previews the SC17 Student Cluster Competition. "In this real-time, non-stop, 48-hour challenge, teams of undergraduate and/or high school students assemble a small cluster on the exhibit floor and race to complete a real-world workload across a series of applications and impress HPC industry judges."  Dan's got the inside scoop on all the new wrinkles of the competition this year, where 16 international student teams will go head-to-head. There's an all high school squad from Indiana, returning champs from China, and an all-new cloud computing component utilizing Cycle Computing on Azure. After that, we do our Catch of the Week. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC teams discusses performance optimization with Carolyn Pasti and Don Avart from Red Line Performance Solutions. RedLine Performance Solutions is a world-class provider of high-performance computing solutions. Our promise: to ensure objectively engineered top quality solutions at every phase of the HPC life cycle, minimizing labor, time, and costs. Our proprietary RedLine Performance Methodology (RPM) – developed over two decades of working with HPC systems and applications and updated regularly with lessons from each new engagement – delivers unique benefits that consistently maximize customer success.RedLine is partnering with Radio Free HPC on Project Cyclops, an effort to build the world's fastest single node on the HPCG benchmark. Listen in as Don and Carolyn share their methodology for workload performance optimization and what it takes to make clusters really perform up their potential in the real world. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed