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Latest revision as of 08:09, 21 August 2013

Technology watch methodology

Introduction

The task of the Technology Watch is to observe, track, filter out and assess potential technologies from a very wide field extending beyond the normal confines of the sector. A Technology Watch process can be broken down into four main phases: a needs audit, data collection, processing of the data collected and integration and dissemination of the results. The Technology Watch process must be capable of identifying any scientific or technical innovation with potential to create opportunities or avoid threats.

Objectives of technology watch

Study and follow the latest trends and advances in technology both in terms of software and programming as well as in terms of hardware and procurement. On the one hand, new architectures and system designs are constantly released by the vendors of top systems, some more suited for particular user communities than others. On the other hand, new software technologies and paradigms, like cloud computing, general purpose GPU computing, etc. emerge from research or industrial efforts. This leads to a naturally heterogeneous distributed HPC infrastructure, and WP8 will establish permanent technology watch to cater for regional user needs. To facilitate this, the project will develop links with PRACE, the industry, and follow the advances in research and developments of HPC systems via scientific conferences and journals.

Methodology

• Organize meetings with vendors

Since the beginning of the project several 1 hour meetings have been organized with vendors and appended to the regular PSC meetings of the consortium. This is to continue in the remaining of the project.

• Ask vendors to fill our survey

This questionnaire is intended to help polling HPC hardware vendors to determine the most important technical trends that they sense in the HPC area. These trends are accumulated, analyzed and then synthesized into an uniform report. The polls will be repeated periodically in order to follow up the most relevant novelties that might impact the near future of HPC.

Vendor survey URL: http://survey.ipb.ac.rs/index.php?sid=82412&lang=en

• Collect know-hows from other projects

The public deliverables of relevant projects (DEISA, PRACE, EGI, EMI, etc.) may content useful information for our work packages.

• Participate on SC/ISC conferences and write digest about the new technical solutions which has been discovered. These summaries should be created about those technological areas which have been defined above
• The evaluation and dissemination of the new technologies can be done by using the hp-see-tech@lists.hp-see.eu mailing list and http://hpseewiki.ipb.ac.rs/index.php/Technology_Watch wiki page
• Liaise with PRACE AISBL (Association International Sans But Lucratif) and include in the related MoU the possibility access the technology watch information that is generated within PRACE

Implementation plan

Involved in this work

• IICT-BAS
• IPB
• GRNET
• NIIFI (Gabor Roczei coordinates this task)
• IFIN-HH

Action plan

Time plan until the end of the project

• Plans for 2012
  • Organize meetings with vendors ask them to fill our survey
  • Creation of technical digests about the visited conferences
  • Finalize PRACE MoU and trying to include the technology watch task
• Plans for 2013
  • Organize meetings with vendors ask them to fill our survey
  • Creation of technical digests about the visited conferences
  • D8.3 Permanent technology watch report (delivery date: M35, July 2013)
    • Responsible: Emanouil Atanassov (IICT-BAS)

Information expansion and dissemination

The technology watch is a complex task where we need to follow up several technological areas. If somebody participate on SC/ISC conferences then he needs to write a technical digest about the new technical solutions which have been discovered and these summaries should be created about those technological areas which have been defined by this section. The dissemination can be done by using the hp-see-tech mailing list and HP-SEE wiki. The new HPC trends will be collected from the vendors over that survey which has been created for this purpose.

Technology watch areas

Software

Tools and libraries

• Parellel Programming
• Generals Scientific and Numeric Libraries
• Virtual Research Communities Specific Libraries
• Tools

New programming languages and models

• OpenACC
• OpenHMPP
• MPI-ACC
• Intel LEO
• GASPI / PGAS
• OpenSHMEM
• Julia
• Rootbeer
• Chapel

System software, middleware and programming environments

• System software
• Local Resource Management System
• Middleware
• Programming environments

Hardware

Green HPC (energy efficiency, cooling)

• Energy efficiency
• Cooling

Processor architectures

• Intel processors
• AMD processors
• NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units
• ARM microprocessors

Interconnect technologies

• Mellanox Infiniband
• Ethernet

Memory and storage units

• Memory technologies
• Storage technologies

Other projects

• Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)
  • Website: http://www.prace-ri.eu
  • The deliverable documents of PRACE can be found here
  • D2.6.1 Operational model analysis and initial specifications
  • D3.3.1 Survey of HPC education and training needs
  • Identification and categorisation of applications and initial benchmarks suite
  • D6.2.2 Final report on application requirements
  • D6.3.1 Report on available performance analysis and benchmark tools, representative Benchmark
  • D7.2 Report on systems compliant with user requirements

• Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA)
  • Website: http://www.deisa.eu/
  • The deliverable documents of DEISA can be found here
  • Planning Training Activities D2-3.1
  • Planning Training Activities D2-3.2
  • Technologies D4.1
  • Applications Enabling D5.1
  • Applications Enabling D5.2
  • Environment and User Related Application Support D6.1
  • Environment and User Related Application Support D6.2
  • DEISA Benchmark Suite D7-2.1
  • DEISA Benchmark Suite D7-2.2
  • Enhancing Scalability D9.1
  • Operations D3-1.2
  • Integration of First Associate Partner D3-2.1
  • Assessment and Implementation Plan of the DEISA Development Environment D8.1
  • DEISA Common Production Environment

• European Middleware Initiative (EMI)
  • Website: http://www.eu-emi.eu/
  • Public deliverables

• European Grid Infrastructure (EGI)
  • Website: http://www.egi.eu/
  • Public deliverables

Technical digests from visited conferences

• Networkshop 2012, 11th April 2012, Veszprém, Hungary
• 7th International Workshop on Parallel Matrix Algorithms and Applications (PMAA 2012) 28-30 June 2012, Birkbeck University of London, UK
• The 11th International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing - ISPDC 2012, in conjunction with MAC Summer Workshop 2012, June 25-29, 2012, Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Munich, Germany
• PRACE 1IP Work Package 9 Future Technologies Workshop
• The International Conference for High Performance Computing 2012, 10-16 November 2012, Salt Lake City, Utah
• International Supercomputing Conference 2012, 17-21 June 2012, Hamburg, Germany

RSS feeds

HPC journals

HPC wire

insideHPC

European projects

EMI

• EMI news:
• EMI Software Repository:

EGI

PRACE

HPC vendors

• IBM: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/technicalcomputing/
• HP: http://h20311.www2.hp.com/hpc/us/en/hpc-index.html
• Dell: http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/hpcc
• NEC: http://www.nec.com/en/de/en/prod/solutions/hpc-solutions/index.html
• SGI: http://www.sgi.com/products/servers
• Hitachi: http://www.hitachi.co.jp/Prod/comp/hpc/
• Fujitsu: http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/solutions/tc/
• Cray Inc.: http://www.cray.com/
• Intel: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/high-performance-computing/server-reliability.html
• Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/

Share statistics of HPC vendors

Source: http://i.top500.org/overtime

Vendor responses about technical trends

• Vendor responses about technical trends

Other useful links

• http://www.deisa.eu/news_press/symposium/Amsterdam2009/presentations/pr_de_talk_vdsteen.pdf
• http://www.prace-ri.eu/IMG/pdf/Huber-PRACE-1IP-Industrial-Seminar-2011-03-28.pdf
• http://www.prace-ri.eu/IMG/pdf/D8-3-2-extended.pdf
• http://www.prace-ri.eu/IMG/pdf/13-Presentation_WP8_PRACE_IndustrySeminar.pdf
• http://innopedia.wikidot.com/technology-watch
• http://www.prace-ri.eu/Organisation
• http://www.prace-ri.eu/Members
• http://www.hpcwire.com/
• http://insidehpc.com/
• http://green500.org/
• http://top500.org/
• http://www.isc-events.com/