Reflecting on 2010 made us realize just what a busy year it’s been.  Let’s all take a deep breath, shall we?  Heading into January of this year, we had a few predictions about cloud computing, virtualization, GPU compute and the trends that would drive us through the 12 months ahead.  Some of those were right on the money while others are still half-baked even an entire year later.

It’s fitting that we’re closing the year with 12 Days of 12 Core, since it began by asking “just what can software do with more cores?”  In March, we were theorizing how more cores can help drive the multi-threaded environments created by virtualization – either hypervisors or the Java Virtual Machine. As the year unrolled it became evident that the AMD Opteron^TM 6000 Series platform was well suited for do the balancing act virtualization requires of the server’s CPU, memory, cache and I/O bandwidth.

We also followed software licensing extensively in 2010.  First in May when we set the record straight about software licensing in a many-core world and again just recently when we reiterated the need to mature the business models around the multi-core, scale out clusters that are central to virtualization and cloud computing. And a quick prediction here for 2011 – we will continue the discussion on software licensing as trends continue toward more cores and mega datacenters.

It wouldn’t be a year in review without talking about the weather, and in 2010 the clouds prevailed.  During the GigaOm Structure event in July – billed as the place to see the future of cloud computing – AMD launched the AMD Opteron^TM 4000 Series platform. Showcasing the 4000 Series as the optimal hardware for the cloud, Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s products group, participated in a fireside chat with Stacey Higginbotham. Rick discussed the dramatic shift over the past five years of software from single thread to multi threading and highlighted the innovations possible with AMD’s next-generation APU technology – designed to give clients better visual experience with lower power use.

We followed the clouds all the way to Europe this fall for Microsoft’s Tech Ed conference where the company  unveiled Hyper-V Cloud, a set of private cloud programs and initiatives enabled by its Hyper-V and System Center products designed to help mature cloud computing.  While I was abroad, I spent the day with Strato, one of Europe’s largest web hosting companies, which showcased how it uses the AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform to deliver an estimated that 25% of Germany’s web traffic through their data centers.

Finally, in 2010 we truly entered the era of ‘experience computing.’ Along with our partners, AMD is constantly working to answer the question, ‘what does the consumer want to do with their PC?’  I think we’ll all agree that the PC is no longer just a number-cruncher; it’s also a multimedia entertainment tool that enables interactive, online communication.  We’re more closely linked to the digital world than ever before and we expect a vivid, lifelike experience in return.  As an example, look no further than the beta launch of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 in September, 2010.

To enable our software partners to deliver the experience consumers expect, we’ll continue to work tirelessly with other industry leaders to mature the tools needed to best harness AMD CPUs, GPUs and forthcoming APUs.  In 2010, we were specifically focused on helping software developers fully leverage the GPU as it takes its place alongside the CPU as a powerful computational engine. While this is a trend that is prevalent now in the consumer space, as SC10 showed us this year, GPUs have their place in servers as well.

Phew – makes me tired just thinking about 2010.  What do you think have been the most important software advances of the past year?

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Margaret Lewis is a Product Marketing Director at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.