Blue Waters will be open to a large number of researchers who will be using the supercomputer to delve into such topics as the behavior of complex biological systems, the evolution of the cosmos after the Big Bang, material design at an atomic level, studying and (hopefully) predicting the behavior of hurricanes and tornadoes, as well as researching complex electrical systems like you find in airplanes.

Phase 1 of this project is the delivery of 48 cabinets of Cray XE6 systems that allow the team to build out the first phase and begin working on the programming.  Believe it or not, when you are stringing thousands of servers together to solve a single task, at times how they are connected and interact can be more important than what you are connecting. The programming model and interconnect are very critical in these systems.  That is why Cray designed their own performance optimized interconnect, called Gemini, to help tie the servers together with four 2P nodes on a single blade.

This first set of 48 cabinets is already being used by some early researchers who plan to model high-temperature plasmas, simulate the formation and evolution of the Milky Way’s most distant ancestors and study the protein capsid that encases the HIV-1 genome.

For more information about some of this work, check out http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2012-03-21/researchers_begin_using_blue_waters_supercomputer.html

We look forward to watching the progress of this project as it comes online and invite you to do the same.  For more information you can visit the following:

The Blue Waters Newsletter

Live video feed of the installation

Time lapse of the installation of the first systems

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server, Embedded and FireStream products at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

But AMD does. We understand it so much that today, we made a significant investment in fabric computing, announcing that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to purchase SeaMicro. SeaMicro has been known in high-density computing circles as a company with a unique fabric solution that leverages industry standards to help tie multiple computers together into a fabric that helps drive down the cost of deploying, operating and expanding computing resources.

The basis of the SeaMicro technology is the interconnect fabric. A custom ASIC allows multiple computers to be linked together via their PCI Express bus. This fabric allows a large number of servers, to be tied together in a fabric within a dense chassis, all sharing a high-performance connection to networking and I/O peripherals. Servers go from being a large box to a small card as they are aggregated into this environment. Card-based servers are infinitely easier to deploy and manage because there are fewer discrete components and more sharing. The days of overprovisioning a rack of servers falls by the wayside, with a new paradigm that helps customers better utilize their data center space, power and resources.

So, what does this acquisition mean for AMD? We are making strategic investments for the future to ensure we have the IP and capabilities necessary to continue to grow our server business for the long-term.  By combining AMD’s unique IP with SeaMicro IP and fabric, we are staking a leading, differentiated position in the fastest growing segment of the server industry. When you look at the IP that AMD has at its disposal, large cores like “Bulldozer” and the upcoming “Piledriver”; smaller, energy efficient cores like “Bobcat” and the upcoming “Jaguar”; as well as leading GPU technology, it all means that we have the ability to build a variety of CPU and APU products that can be integrated into servers. And the unique fabric solution from SeaMicro helps AMD tie all of these pieces together.

At the most recent AMD Financial Analyst Day, Mark Papermaster and Lisa Su both spoke of the new AMD direction towards SOCs (system on a chip) that will allow us to take a wide range of IP and integrate it into purpose-built SOCs that meet particular computing needs. With SeaMicro we now have the fabric to pull all of these together as well. The SeaMicro IP that helps connect all of these computers together could one day be built directly into these SOCs, providing an easy way to tie systems together with the smallest silicon footprint possible.

Where will SeaMicro products make the most sense? Eventually, one day, it is not out of the realm of possibility that everything in the data center is part of that type of fabric. But that won’t happen on day one. Instead, we’ll see deployment of these products into the following areas:

• Large “scale out” data centers – These data centers, often associated with Cloud or Web 2.0 companies is a natural place for these products. That is why you already see SeaMicro with a footprint in this space today. These customers know the value of every single watt and see the tremendous potential of the SeaMicro fabric technology.
• Space-constrained data centers – If you have ever spent time on Wall Street, you know that not only time is money, but that space is money as well. Financial companies tend to be in the hearts of large cities and the cost of real estate means that every rack U matters. The SeaMicro technology allows for a far denser deployment than blades, twins or other dense form factors can deliver.
• “Physicalized” data centers – While virtualization is a key technology for helping data centers get better utilization of their IT assets, not every IT problem has a virtualization solution. Sometimes “physicalization” is a better solution instead of virtualization. Dense, interconnected systems, each holding its own system image, instead of sharing compute resources like virtualization, could be deployed to help drive down costs of computing, power and management.

And that is just the start. Long term, today’s data center is a target-rich environment, with plenty of areas in the world of network infrastructure that could move to a fabric. Fabrics allow all of the server cards to access shared I/O and networking peripherals, delivering up to 10Gb/s capabilities to each server, and provide a scalable uplink into the core routers. Just the reduction in cabling alone, (installing it, managing it, and having it block airflow) makes these fabric solutions appealing for customers. Think about the miles of cable in your data center that could be eliminated if that connectivity between a larger number of servers happened inside the box instead of at the rack level.

Does this mean that AMD is heading into the systems business? Not at all. We will maintain and grow the SeaMicro’s customer base (which already includes OEMs) to ensure that we continue to deliver the products that they need to run their business. But the long term goal is to broaden the offering by integrating their technology into a variety of tailored platforms from our OEMs, creating a larger ecosystem of products for customers to choose from.

The acquisition is actually the beginning of the hard work, not the end. Now that we have the SeaMicro technology in our portfolio, it is time to look at all of the products on the roadmap and figure out where the intersection of the two roadmaps will occur. Stay tuned for more to come on this front as this is clearly an exciting time for AMD and the entire server industry.

Medical imaging depends on high quality displays and graphics that help radiology professionals see more, enabling improved diagnostic abilities and patient treatment. Most of our partners offer eight and 10 megapixel displays, like this 10MP display from Barco, that make the most subtle details visible for more accurate diagnosis.

One of the hot topics at this year’s show was Tomosynthesis and its role as a diagnostic tool, with several companies announcing and demonstrating new solutions. Barco, a global technology company designing and developing visualization solutions and leader in medical imaging, demonstrated its breast tomosynthesis solution. Used as a complement to 2D digital mammography, tomosynthesis offers multi-frame 3D views of the breast, similar to the slices an MRI offers. These slices provide detailed insight into breast tissue, helping to improve lesion visibility and cancer detection and reduce patient recall rates. Barco’s Mammo Tomosynthesis five megapixel display system, shown below, is driven by its MXRT-7400 display controller, based on the ATI FirePro™ V7800 professional graphics. The combined solution is designed for image delivery without motion blur, increasing correct diagnoses and swift workflows, and pixel-perfect images offering clearer visibility of differences in tissue density.

AMD professional graphics has been an exclusive Barco medical imaging technology partner for almost a decade, and all of Barco’s RSNA demos were powered by AMD professional graphics cards. AMD and Barco are working together to help address customer mandates, whether it be prolonging the life of older technology or undertaking a redesign of existing graphics cards in response to customer requests. Bottom line – we are committed to providing the best visual experience possible for the radiological community.

Another interesting trend at RSNA 2011 is the migration from Microsoft Windows® XP to Windows® 7. Multi-monitor workflows are old news at RSNA. For many years radiology workflows have required three displays: one to display patient information and office applications, typically a lower resolution color display, and two high resolution monochromatic (black and white) displays for reviewing patient scans (see the image below).

This set up historically required two graphics cards, one to drive patient information and a second more powerful card to drive the other two displays. With Windows 7 and AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology*, this configuration can be driven by just one AMD FirePro™ professional graphics card. In addition to saving our partners and their customers’ money, we help eliminate the hassle of maintaining and supporting two graphics cards, and enable partners to offer smaller workstation form factors that power the entire solution – helping to maximize available workspace and reduce power consumption.

At RSNA 2010, the medical imaging industry was predominantly running XP and this year we heard from nearly all of our partners that end users are actively migrating to Windows 7, allowing them to take advantage of AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology. In addition, we hear that many radiology professionals are now asking IT to configure multi-display set ups for them at home, running off of a mobile workstation. With AMD FirePro™ professional graphics, featuring AMD Eyefinity technology, these professionals can work efficiently across multiple screens at several locations at work and at home, without missing a beat. While there is an extra expense for purchasing displays for home use, radiology professionals have the added flexibility to work as needed and potentially increase the number of reviews they do each day.

This migration means significant change for the medical imaging industry but it brings significant opportunity – for improved quality of graphics, diagnostics and treatment. Let’s see what RSNA 2012 brings.

Sandeep Gupte is the general manager for Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his 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.

*AMD Eyefinity technology works with applications that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, additional panels with native DisplayPort connectors, and/or DisplayPort compliant active adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards DisplayPort or Mini-DisplayPort connector(s), are required.  AMD Eyefinity technology can support up to 6 displays using a single enabled AMD FirePro™ graphics card with Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating systems – the number of displays may vary by board design and you should confirm exact specifications with the applicable manufacturer before purchase.  SLS (“Single Large Surface”) functionality requires an identical display resolution on all configured displays.

AMD has launched the new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors with up to 16-core configurations that enable customers to choose a balance of clock speed and core count to perfectly match their HPC application.  This upgrade delivers improved performance, scalability, efficiency and value over prior offerings while maintaining platform consistency that scales for memory- and compute-intensive HPC workloads.

Appro has upgraded our rack-mounted server platforms featuring 8-, 12- and 16-core density offering a stronger HPC platform. Our server platforms will handle more threads per node with faster memory throughput and improved power efficiency to tackle larger research projects quicker and more efficiently.  In addition, the new Appro server platforms can help companies get more out of their IT investment by maintaining server platform consistency, enabled by drop-in upgradeability for this new generation of AMD cores. These recently launched Appro supercomputing platforms are based on the new AMD Opteron processors. We are also very excited about our next generation, Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer based on the new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors. Our  Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer will offer greater enhancements to the overall Appro HPC solution portfolio while providing numerous opportunities for 2012 and beyond.

By the way, Appro will be demonstrating our next generation AMD Opteron processor-based servers and supercomputers at SC11 booth # 2312 in Seattle, Wash. on November 14-17.  Stop by to get an up close and personal look at our new system demos or register to attend our end-user supercomputing best practices presentations. You’ll have a chance to win an Apple iPad 2, Apple iPod Nano and other cool swag!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Maria McLaughlin is the Director of Marketing for Appro International, Inc. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

• “Processor and Platforms”: AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series Processor
• “Power Bands”: Select all three Power Bands
• “Workload/Applications”: Select all eleven Workloads/Applications

Specifically, I’d like to focus on the huge improvements that have been made in database performance, the large server power savings that can be achieved using the AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processor, and the large performance advantages of using AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series for High Performance Computing applications.

Database Performance and Value

TPC-C is one of the industry’s most widely used benchmarks for database performance.Based on the latest TPC-C results, a server using the new AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6282 SE can provide up to 71 percent higher performance than a server using the existing AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6176 SE¹. This server also outperforms competing solutions by as much as 18 percent¹.

Server Energy Efficiency and Performance-per-Watt

The enhancements and improvements that have been made to the AMD-P suite of power management technologies have significantly improved the energy efficiency and performance-per-watt of AMD Opteron™ processor-based servers. The new C6 power state reduces processor power at idle by up to 46 percent². When these energy efficient processors are used in servers, the server power savings can be dramatic – as much as a 20 percent reduction in server active idle power and an 18 percent increase in server performance-per-watt³.

High Performance Computing Application Performance

Finally, servers using AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors can provide excellent performance on a large number of High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. Each AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processor has four memory channels supporting up to DDR3-1866 memory. AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors are available with up to 16 cores. This high memory bandwidth and high core count results in HPC application performance advantages of up to 72 percent⁴.

So whether you’re seeking excellent performance, value, or energy efficiency, servers using AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processor deliver.

Please make sure to view the rest of the www.amd.com content on these new processors and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Andy Parma is a Product Marketing Manager for Server/Workstation products at AMD. His postings are his 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.

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

TPC-C and tpmC are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council. SPEC and SPECpower are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

¹The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6282 SE are based upon data submitted Transaction Processing Performance Council as of November 11, 2011. The other results stated above reflect results published on www.tpc.org as of November 11, 2011. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing two-socket servers using AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6176 SE and 6282 SE and Intel Xeon processors Model X5690. For the latest TPC-C results, visit www.tpc.org. 1207982 tpmC  using 2 x AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6282 SE in HP ProLiant DL385 G7 server, 512GB memory, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 Enterprise x64 Edition SP3

²Based on testing in AMD Labs as of November 9, 2011, an AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6174 (12-core 2.2GHz) consumes 11.7W in the active idle C1E power state while an AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6276 (16-core 2.3GHz) consumes only 6.4W in the active idle C1E power state with new C6 power gating employed.  System configuration:  “Drachma” reference design kit, 32GB (8 x 4GB DDR3-1333) memory, 500GB SATA disk drive, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition R2. SVR-60

³The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6276 are based upon data submitted to Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation as of November 9, 2011. The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6174 reflect results published on www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results as of November 9, 2011. The comparison presented above is based on two-socket servers with the highest overall performance to power ratio using AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6276 and 6174. For the latest SPECpower_ssj2008 results, visit www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results. 68.9W at Active Idle and 2881 overall ssj_ops/watt using 2 x AMD Opteron processors Model 6276 in HP ProLiant DL165 G7 server, 32GB (8 x 4GB DDR3-1333 1.35V) memory, HP 591556-101 power supply, 60GB SATA SSD disk drive, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition

⁴Based on measurements in AMD labs as of November 9, 2011. Pricing reflects planned AMD 1kU tray pricing Intel 1kU tray pricing and www.intel.com as of November 9, 2011, and is subject to change. 0.37 days/ns using 2 x AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6276 in Supermicro H8DGT server, 64GB (8 x 8GB DDR3-1600) memory, SuSE Linux® Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit, x86 Open64 4.2.5.2-1 Compiler Suite. 0.64 days/ns using 2 x Intel Xeon processors Model X5670 in Supermicro 6026TT-BIBQF server, 24GB (6 x 4GB DDR3-1333) memory, SuSE Linux® Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit, Intel Professional Compiler v11.1

TPC-C, tpmC, and TPC Benchmark are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council. SPEC and SPECpower are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.  For the latest results, visit www.spec.org.

¹The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6282 SE are based upon data submitted Transaction Processing Performance Council as of November 11, 2011. The other results stated above reflect results published on www.tpc.org as of November 11, 2011. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing two-socket servers using AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6176 SE and 6282 SE and Intel Xeon processors Model X5690. For the latest TPC-C results, visit www.tpc.org. 1207982 tpmC using 2 x AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6282 SE in HP ProLiant DL385 G7 server, 512GB memory, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 Enterprise x64 Edition SP3

²Based on testing in AMD Labs as of November 9, 2011, an AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6174 (12-core 2.2GHz) consumes 11.7W in the active idle C1E power state while an AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6276 (16-core 2.3GHz) consumes only 6.4W in the active idle C1E power state with new C6 power gating employed.  System configuration:  “Drachma” reference design kit, 32GB (8 x 4GB DDR3-1333) memory, 500GB SATA disk drive, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 x64 Enterprise Edition R2. SVR-60

³The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6276 are based upon data submitted to Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation as of November 9, 2011. The results for AMD Opteron™ processor Model 6174 reflect results published on www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results as of November 9, 2011. The comparison presented above is based on two-socket servers with the highest overall performance to power ratio using AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6276 and 6174. For the latest SPECpower_ssj2008 results, visit www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/results. 68.9W at Active Idle and 2811 overall ssj_ops/watt using 2 x AMD Opteron processors Model 6276 in HP ProLiant DL165 G7 server, 32GB (8 x 4GB DDR3-1333 1.35V) memory, HP 591556-101 power supply, 60GB SATA SSD disk drive, Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition

⁴Based on measurements in AMD labs as of November 9, 2011. Pricing reflects planned AMD 1kU tray pricing Intel 1kU tray pricing and www.intel.com as of November 9, 2011, and is subject to change. 0.37 days/ns using 2 x AMD Opteron™ processors Model 6276 in Supermicro H8DGT server, 64GB (8 x 8GB DDR3-1600) memory, SuSE Linux® Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit, x86 Open64 4.2.5.2-1 Compiler Suite. 0.64 days/ns using 2 x Intel Xeon processors Model X5670 in Supermicro 6026TT-BIBQF server, 24GB (6 x 4GB DDR3-1333) memory, SuSE Linux® Enterprise Server 11 SP1 64-bit, Intel Professional Compiler v11.1

A little more than two years ago, my colleague, Barry Bolding, penned a post for the AMD at Work blog that spoke to the launch of the Six-Core AMD Opteron processor. Last March, Barry wrote another guest blog sharing his excitement for the AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor. Well, with Barry heading a new division within Cray and with my new role as senior vice president of HPC systems, it’s my time to share our enthusiasm for AMD’s new processors!

It’s clear that Cray as well as our Cray XE6 and Cray XK6 customers are very excited about the new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processor. In fact, we have already issued a number of announcements about the new processors with various supercomputing centers around the world including plans to upgrade to Cray systems at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), the University of Edinburgh (HECToR) and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – where the Cray XT5 supercomputer nicknamed “Jaguar” will be upgraded to a new Cray XK6 supercomputer nicknamed “Titan.” So yes, it’s safe to say that Cray and our customers are thrilled with AMD’s launch of the world’s first 16-core x86 processor.

A launch of a new processor means there are new features to share with the users of our systems, and performance increases always takes center stage. Our customers are like Maverick and Goose from the movie Top Gun – they “feel the need, the need for speed!” The new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series will fill that need. The processor architecture is very flexible and can be applied effectively to a variety of workloads and problems; on the same note our customers are excited about the new AVX instructions and the boost provided by AMD Turbo CORE technology.

Perhaps equally innovative are the advances in balancing the obvious performance improvements with the ever more important focus on power efficiency. Our customers will continue to find ways to utilize faster and larger multi-core processors to execute more complex algorithms, while AMD continues its work to directly address today’s demanding constraints of power budget and footprint. Advancements in processor technologies, such as those found in the new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series, will help create price, performance and power-optimized systems that will give Cray users the ability to apply more computing resources towards solving complex problems.

There is a lot to be excited about today. So, on behalf of Cray and the scientists, engineers and researchers who use our systems, we extend our congratulations to AMD on today’s launch!

Margaret Williams is the Sr. Vice President of HPC Systems for Cray, Inc. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

So you’ll notice that both VMware vSphere 5.0 and vSphere 4.1 Update 2 can already leverage the full scalability of the new 16-core AMD Opteron 6200 Series processor in a 4-socket server platform.  And as an added bonus, vSphere 5.0 also stops licensing by core count.  We also worked closely with AMD’s server OEMs to successfully qualify and certify their new AMD Opteron processor-based servers by launch time.  These servers are already starting to list on VMware’s Hardware Compatibility Guide.

Our preparation for this month’s launch can even be seen in 2010 when we introduced the “AMD Opteron Generation 3 w/o 3Dnow! Enhanced VMotion” mode in VMware vSphere 4.1.  This mode allows older AMD processors to perform enhanced VMotion with the new AMD Opteron processors and ensures seamless integration with existing customer infrastructure.

So congratulations to AMD on this important processor launch!

Richard A. Brunner is the Chief Platform Architect in the CTO Office at VMware. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

AMD PowerTune technology represents a significant leap forward to better ensure optimal performance for TDP-constrained GPUs, and because AMD PowerTune magic happens behind the scenes so to speak, I’d like to tell you a little more about what it is and how it can positively impact the overall computing experience for AMD FirePro™ professional graphics users.

AMD provides system builders with a Thermal Design Power (TDP) figure for each AMD FirePro™ professional graphics card in the family, representing the maximum power draw for reliable operation. Like all microprocessors, GPUs consume electrical energy when in use and it’s converted to heat energy that must be dissipated. As such, the rate of energy consumption is limited by a system’s ability to both deliver power to the GPU and cool it by removing the heat it generates. Traditionally, as heat generated from the GPU die increased, clock speeds and voltage decreased to compensate. This “brute force” technique is inefficient and can actually stifle GPU performance. So we set out to find a more efficient power management solution that no longer compromised application performance.

In a nutshell, AMD PowerTune technology dynamically adjusts the performance profile in real time to stay within the set thermal envelope. Internally calculated power assessments are conducted per clock cycle, keeping tabs on individual hot spots on the GPU die and then clocking down individual components as needed to maximize power use and performance. The result is a controlled power envelope that allows the GPU to run at higher clock speeds in a higher power state and deliver greater performance.

What does this mean to the average AMD FirePro™ graphics user? It means the GPU can adapt its power and performance to different scenarios dynamically as the user works, without impacting application performance.  AMD PowerTune technology is transparent in its ability to contain applications in real time without relying on specific drivers or application profiles. Unlike consumer applications/games, workstation applications generally process high amounts of geometry while handling significantly less pixel shading and texturing. Without AMD PowerTune technology, applications that exceed the set GPU TDP are forced to lower power states (such as intermediate or lowest states) and may experience a hefty performance hit as a result of drastically reduced clock speeds and voltages.

AMD PowerTune technology is an intelligent power management solution that defies the notion that given power states must be fixed. The final clock speeds of TDP-limited GPUs are no longer based on a compromise between a severe performance loss when running higher power applications and performance left on the table when running lower power applications.

For those of you interested in an in-depth explanation of AMD PowerTune technology and how it works, check out this whitepaper. For the rest of you, just know that the magic of AMD PowerTune technology is running behind the scenes every time you power up a desktop or mobile workstation with AMD FirePro™ V5900 and V7900 professional graphics.

Sandeep Gupte is the general manager for Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his 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.

Having worked for AMD for more than seven years, I’ve spent a significant amount of time with customers. Trying to better understand their needs and feature requirements, and incorporating my findings into future product roadmaps. Back in early 2010 we began to see increased interest in remote graphics solutions. IT managers were looking to replace existing desktop workstations with energy-efficient thin-client solutions.

In honor of the day Canadian ice hockey player Derek Roy of the Buffalo Sabres was born 28 years ago, on May 4, 2010 we introduced ATI FirePro™ RG220 remote workstation graphics – the industry’s first enterprise PCoIP remote multi-display solution for CAD, DCC and financial services. It was designed to deliver a wide-ranging compute experience from the datacenter without compromise, and help IT managers reduce local power and cooling costs per user while limiting the amount of physical hardware at users’ desks. (I’m actually a diehard Minnesota Wild fan but any Canadian who plays hockey is alright in my book…but my team will always be better than their team. Go Wild!)

The ATI FirePro RG220 was the only child in the AMD FirePro™ remote graphics family until today. In recent months customers expressed interest in deploying the ATI FirePro RG220 in smaller form factors with harsh environments. We heard them loud and clear again and today we’re pleased to announce the latest addition to the family. New AMD FirePro™ RG220A remote graphics feature the same multi-monitor support, energy efficiency and graphics compression and transmission capabilities as the ATI FirePro RG220 but it’s actively cooled. Featuring a variable speed fan that adjusts to speed up the exchange of air heated by computer parts, AMD FirePro RG220A remote graphics are ideal for small form factor deployments with harsh environments: compact spaces, multiple components and higher ambient temperatures.

The digital signage market is one of several that can benefit from the actively cooled AMD FirePro RG220A. Because the card typically sits in a server room, there is no need to visit the actual site where the sign is displayed, which in many cases is in a public area. Instead of waiting for the business to close or traffic to die down, any changes can be made in the server room and pushed out to the display at any time. In addition, should the display need to be powered down, it can be done from the server room instead of at the actual site. Not only can the AMD FirePro RG220A save time, it can also help to reduce energy costs.

In addition to the benefits I mentioned above, AMD FirePro remote graphics are also:

• Flexible, straightforward host side solutions capable of enabling a full remote PC computing and graphics experience. They can be deployed in any rack workstations or blade PCs for use with desktop portal devices or displays with integrated PCoIP capability. And unlike some solutions, AMD FirePro remote graphics do not require users to be within a set distance of the solution or require fiber optic cables to transmit data, and are capable of delivering robust computing experiences to remote users anywhere on the corporate network.
• Energy efficient, consuming <35W max power, and are capable of running graphics intensive applications. ATI FirePro RG220 and AMD FirePro RG220A are both based on PCoIP technology from Teradici that helps to overcome remote computing challenges like poor responsiveness and lack of media or graphics support – enabling users to freely create and render moderately complex 3D models or animations, or view and interact with digital multimedia
• Secure and help protect corporate IP and keep sensitive data safeguarded in the data center, intact and uncompromised. With PCoIP technology, all transmissions are encrypted, USB devices are authenticated and restricted devices locked down. 

As you can see, like Derek Roy and Niklas Bäckström, goaltender for the Minnesota Wild, AMD FirePro remote graphics are cool, powerful and nimble, plus they deliver uncompromised quality of graphics. Their sophisticated transmission and compression capabilities enable a true PC experience with full multi-monitor 3D and video support. Last but not least, AMD FirePro™ remote graphics contribute to low cost of ownership – their single-slot, energy efficient design and long lifecycle can help reduce operating costs and help IT increase data center density.

Mitch Furman is a senior product manager for Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his 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.

The ability to wear multiple hats applies as much to people as it does to technology. When I’m not at work I’m a husband, father, baseball coach, hockey fan, sushi addict, foursquare fanatic and successful comedian. While that last point may be a stretch it’s no joke that I’m responsible for the development of our 2D multi-view professional graphics cards, the remote graphics family and graphics solutions for the medial medical imaging market. And earlier this year I donned the coolest hat yet when I took on our first data center solution.

AMD FirePro™ professional graphics are typically incorporated into the workstations and mobile workstations architects, engineers, animators and designers rely on to bring their creations to life. But just like me, our graphics cards are not one trick ponies ─ their ultra-fast performance, superb visual quality and massively parallel processing power can help data center managers overcome a few challenges. These managers need to find ways to do more with less, meet the computing needs of varied user groups, more efficiently maintain and support fleets of systems, and ultimately protect data and prevent leakage.

Back in May we announced plans to expand beyond workstations and bring the of AMD FirePro professional graphics into the data center to help IT address the challenges and more. The AMD FirePro™ V7800P professional graphics was our first multifunctional server solution – capable of supporting Compute, Professional Graphics and VDI deployments. It’s the only single-slot multifunctional server solution available today, is certified by Microsoft for RemoteFX and can support up to 16 virtual machines running typical office applications, and is capable of tackling the most demanding compute-intensive, data-parallel tasks. In fact, it’s the only single-slot graphics solution certified for RemoteFX that is offered by an OEM – the Dell PowerEdge M610x blade server.

AMD FirePro V7800P

For data center managers looking for a more robust solution, this week we begin shipping our newest and most powerful multifunctional sever solution, AMD FirePro™ V9800P professional graphics. Capable of wearing the same Compute, Professional Graphics and VDI hats as the AMD FirePro V7800P, the AMD FirePro V9800P brings even more to the table:

• 4GB of GDDR5 memory
• 2.64 TFLOPS of single precision and 528 GFLOPS of double precision floating point performance
• Microsoft certification for RemoteFX and the ability to support up to 22 virtual machines running typical office applications
• Remote computing experiences on par with physical systems, including rich media like full motion video and 3D applications
• Passive cooling for silent operation and deployment flexibility
• An affordable MSRP of $2,499 – 50% less than the competing solution*

AMD FirePro V9800P

AMD Professional Graphics are moving beyond the workstation, to take on the data center and help IT to meet the most demanding centralized computing needs. With GPU compute gaining increased adoption and the ability to implement true graphics virtualization with RemoteFX, these really are exciting times.

Mitch Furman is a senior product manager, Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his 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.

*AMD FirePro V9800P MSRP is $2,499 compared to Nvidia Tesla M2070Q at $5,489; Nvidia MSRP from www.costcentral.com on 7/8/2011.

For many enterprises, data center concerns for the past 5 years focused on IT sprawl and inefficiency, power and cooling shortfalls, and inadequate disaster recovery plans. IT organizations are addressing these challenges with a range of solutions:

• New technologies such as server/storage virtualization to consolidate IT assets
• New IT deployment models such as converged IT infrastructure to improve utilization and maximize asset use
• New data center designs to optimize power and cooling while enabling more rapid IT recovery

Customers are increasingly deploying modular computing infrastructures optimized at the chasis and rack level for optimum processing, memory, I/O and storage performance. Capacity will be delivered in partial and full rack increments. Transaction and content delivery environments, used in traditional web serving and on-line transaction processing, are sensitive to latency, response time, and availability variations, so some geographic dispersion in multiple data centers makes sense.

As an organization makes the transition from Big Data as a “junior science project” to Big Data as a core business resource, concerns about the impact of this new, and rather different, workload on current and future data center plans will increase. Today, the IT architectural approach used in clustered environments such as a large Hadoop grid is radically different from the converged and virtualized IT environments driving most organizations’ data center transformation strategies. They have different server/storage configurations, different environmental (power and HVAC) profiles, and different data ingest/migration patterns.

In a number of larger enterprises (especially those with global needs like major financial institutions and retail organizations), IDC expects to see the emergence of separate data centers designed specifically for Big Data workloads. Concentration of data streams and compute resources makes more sense for both performance and telecommunications cost reasons.  Basically, the data center becomes the Big Data system.

This concentration requirement will also make “the Cloud” a critical part of the “Big Data” picture. Conceptually, “The Cloud” is about dispersion of computing and storage resources, but in reality, the organizations building the underlying cloud infrastructure are concentrating IT and telecommunications resources to more efficiently deliver applications and information. Those organizations are also playing a role in every facet of the Big Data space:

• They are one of the most important generators/collectors of data inputs
• They are among the most important aggregators/forwarders of data streams and content
• They are the most aggressive users/innovators in the development of Big Data hardware and software solutions for use in their own businesses

Given this combination, IDC expects cloud service providers to play a critical role (through simple, temporary provisioning of large processor, memory, and data pools) in the early and rapid adoption of Big Data use by technically savvy, but resource constrained, organizations. Already, cloud-based Big Data platforms are making it practical for smaller engineering and architectural firms to access massive compute resources for short, semi-predictable time periods without having to build their own Big Data IT farms.  Look for solutions targeting other sectors such as healthcare, consumer products, and logistics.

As an IT leader, you need to both understand what your organization is planning around Big Data and begin developing a Big Data IT infrastructure strategy (be it part of your own data center or with a cloud partner). In doing so, you must understand the potential value Big Data represents for your organization and industry. IDC believes that building successful business cases around Big Data can only be accomplished through a tight alignment of critical thinking across both IT and the business. This will require out-of-the-box business thinking as well as moving outside traditional IT comfort zones like traditional data warehousing.

Big Data deployments will also require you to rethink and realign IT administration and application developer skill sets. In this fast evolving area people with these skills are likely to be in short supply for quite a while. You may be able to retrain some existing team members, but once you do they will be highly sought after by competitors. Cloud service providers, making their own considerable investments in Big Data solutions will be among your best “friends” when it comes to getting started, getting serious, and getting to be a leader in Big Data.

Richard Villars is Vice President of Storage and IT Executive Strategies with IDC. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Several of the enhancements you will see in the Citrix Xen Client Tech Preview are the result of close collaboration between AMD and Citrix:

-        XenClient 2 not only supports standard integrated graphics, but also supports advanced discrete graphics from AMD – both AMD FirePro™ professional graphics and AMD Radeon™ graphics cards are now supported, delivering a truly native 3D graphics experience.

-        Dedicated graphics card support enables, for the first time, the XenClient virtual machine to access industry-leading AMD FirePro or AMD Radeon graphics hardware, enabling the delivery of high levels of performance and visual quality to end-users.

Our collaboration in delivering this functionality is driven by the increasing demand of more sophisticated virtualization capabilities, in particular by enterprise end-users.  While data center server virtualization is a no brainer these days, client virtualization, and in particular virtualizing graphic intensive workloads is more challenging.  The work we have done together is making it easier for enterprises to adopt client-based virtualization sans complexity and without sacrificing performance.

Citrix has made their XenClient 2 Tech Review public today on their website.  We encourage you to download it and give it a test drive.

John Fritz is a Director of AMD Strategic Software Alliances. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

As my colleague, Matt Eastwood, mentioned in an earlier blog , data creation is occurring at a record rate. After noting this development, business and IT executives tend to ask IDC one question, “So what’s driving all this data growth?”

In the financial services industry, the answer is easy to provide. The volume of diverse financial transactions occurring around the globe continues to accelerate. Players in this industry face ever stricter anit-money laundering regulations that require big investments in “Big Data” solutions. For most other industries, however, the answer to this question of data sources provides some interesting insights into what use cases are driving Big Data developments. Industries that just recently began to digitize their content are or soon will be joining financial services as some of the biggest Big Data consumers.

• Media/entertainment: Moved to digital recording, production and delivery and are now collecting large amounts of rich content as well as user viewing and gamer playing behavior data
• Healthcare: Quickly moving to electronic medical records and images which they want to use for short term public health monitoring and long term epidemiological research programs
• Life sciences: Will soon be generating large volume of low cost (<$1,000) gene sequencing data that needs to be analyzed to look for genetic variations and potential treatment effectiveness
• Video surveillance: Transitioning from CCTV to IP TV cameras and recording systems that organizations want to automatically analyze for behavioral patterns. Generating data at an accelerating rate from fleet GPS transceivers, RFID tag readers, “smart meters”, and cell phones (call data records, or CDRs) that they want to use to optimize operations
• Transportation, logistics, retail, utilities, telecommunications: Web and social media solutions such as TMZ, Facebook, and Twitter are among the “newest “new data sources. A number of new businesses are now building “Big Data” environments that leverage consumers’ (conscious or unconscious) nearly continuous streams of data about themselves (e.g., likes, locations, opinions).

IDC had a chance to speak with Cameron Befus, VP of Engineering at Tynt, an emerging leader in analysis for media and advertising industries. A couple years ago, Tynt took notice of the growing volume of “copy and paste” actions on many information websites. They wondered if anybody cared. They wrote a little program that would track these actions (they added other actions such as “print” later). As Cameron noted, “we started showing it to publishers; their eyes got big; and they wanted to know more about what they could do with it.” At the one year mark that were collecting and analyzing over 4 billion data points (e.g., web site cut and paste operations) per month. Today (less than a year later), they’re approaching 20 billion data points per month with peaks loads approaching 30,000 events per second. To handle this load they deployed a set of Hadoop clusters (production and development) with over 100 nodes and half a petabyte of capacity.

After talking about these data sources, the next question IDC hears is, “so how do I decide if a Big Data solution can deliver business value for my organization?” Regardless of industry or sector, the ultimate value of a specific Big Data use needs to be judged based on one or more of three criteria.

Does it provide more useful information?

IDC spoke to a major retailer that is implementing a digital video system throughout its stores, not only to monitor theft, but to analyze the flow of shoppers through the store at different times of day, week, and year. It also wants compare flows in different regions. This effort makes it easier for the retailer to tune and assess layouts and promotion spaces on a store by store basis.

Does it improve the fidelity of the information?

IDC spoke to several earth sciences and medical epidemiological research teams using “Big Data” systems to monitor and assess the quality of data being collected from remote sensor systems; they are using Big Data not just to look for broad patterns (The obvious and traditional HPC use case), but to identify and eliminate anomalous and false data caused by malfunctions, user error or temporary environmental anomalies (think birds nest in the sensor).

Does it improve the timeliness of the response?

As my colleague, Steve Conway, noted in another blog post , several private and government health care agencies around the world are deploying Big Data systems to reduce the time to detect insurance fraud from months (after checks have been mailed and cashed) to days (eliminating the legal and financial costs associated with fund recovery).

As a CIO or senior IT executive, you need to understand what your organization is planning around Big Data. Only then can you begin to develop a Big Data IT infrastructure strategy to support it.

Richard Villars is Vice President of Storage and IT Executive Strategies with IDC. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Reminder, winners will be announced on or around May 9.

AMD 60 Second Open Source Challenge No.1 (May 3, 2011)

As of December 2010, which company is the largest corporate contributor to the Linux kernel?

• Intel
• IBM
• Red Hat
• AMD

What % of the world’s supercomputers run some variant of Linux?

• 40%
• 65%
• 90%
• 97%

In video games featuring Tux the Penguin, who are his female counterparts?

• Penny and Sally
• Jenny and Gown
• Penny and Gown
• Gown and Mrs. Tux

Why is the Linux penguin named “Tux”?

• Because penguins look like they are wearing a Tuxedo
• He had a dog named Tux and wanted to keep the name
• It stood for “(T)orvalds (U)ni(X)”.
• Because the original artist Larry Ewing had suggested it once in passing

In what city was Linus Torvalds born?

• Stockholm
• Helsinki
• New York
• Singapore

AMD 60 Second Open Source Challenge No.2 (May 4, 2011)

What year and who announced the GNU Project, a free software mass collaboration project?

• 1983, Richard Stallman
• 1982, Linus Torvalds
• 1985, James Hughes
• 1984, Larry Augustin

When was the term “open source” coined?

• 1981
• 1991
• 1995
• 1998

Which is not one of the four freedoms essential to software development as listed in the GNU manifesto?

• Freedom to run a program for any purpose
• Freedom to study the mechanics of the program and modify it
• Freedom to adopt portions of open source code for commercial purposes
• Freedom to improve and change modified versions for public use

True or False: The Linux kernel was started independently of the GNU project but was developed using GCC and other GNU programming tools

• True
• False

According to the Standish Group, approximately how much money per year has the adoption of open source saved consumers?

• $500 million
• $1 billion
• $60 billion
• $100 billion

AMD 60 Second Open Source Challenge No.3 (May 5, 2011)

True or False: Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy playing supercomputer, runs on a Linux-based system

• True
• False

Which mobile operating system is based on a modified version of the Linux Kernel?

• Android
• Symbian
• MeeGo
• Both Android and MeeGo

When was the first version of Red Hat Linux released?

• 1989
• 1992
• 1994
• 1998

When was the Fedora Project created by Red Hat?

• 1997
• 2001
• 2003
• 2006

Who is the current president of the Open Source Iniative?

• Michael Tiemann
• Bruce Perens
• Eric S. Raymond
• Tim O’Reilly

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) 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.

The Red Hat Summit is a forum for discussing the latest in cloud computing, platform, virtualization, middleware, and management technologies. AMD is a Gold Sponsor of the event and on May 4^th, the director of AMD’s Operating System Research Center, Chris Schlaeger will host a session outlining AMD’s ongoing commitment to the open source community. He’ll also provide an overview of AMD’s next-generation server processor codenamed “Bulldozer”, and detail the joint collaboration efforts of AMD and Red Hat to enable Bulldozer’s new features and functions in Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

So what’s in it for you? While we’re talking open source in Boston, we’ll be giving you a chance to win one of three 16 GB HP USB Flash Drive V125w USB flash drives. To enter the Q&A challenge, check out our Facebook page or follow @AMDSoftware on Twitter from May 3-5 and enter the daily open source quiz (hint: you might want to brush up on your history first). Answer all the questions correctly and you’ll be entered into the drawing to win. Winners announced on May 9^th!

For more on AMD’s support of the open source ecosystem, please visit our developer blog at: http://blogs.amd.com/developer/. The full contest rules are below.

Good luck!

Margaret Lewis (@margaretjlewis) 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.

AMD 60 SECOND OPEN SOURCE CHALLENGE

OFFICIAL RULES

No purchase required to enter or win. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. Void where prohibited.

1. Eligibility: The AMD 60 Second Open Source Challenge (the “Contest”) is open only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States (including the District of Columbia) who are 18 years of age or older.  Employees , officers, directors and agents of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc., Bite Communications, Inc., Red Hat, Rationalsurvey.com, and each of their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, and the immediate family (defined as parents, children, siblings and husband or wife) of each such employees, officers directors and agents (regardless of where they live), together with those with whom such employees , officers, directors and agents are domiciled, whether related or not, are not eligible to participate.

1. Sponsor: The Contest is sponsored by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., One AMD Place, PO Box 3453, Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3453 (“AMD” or “Sponsor”).

1. Agreement to Official Rules: Participation in the Contest constitutes entrant’s full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final and binding.  Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein.

1. Entry Period: The Contest is broken down into the following entry periods (each referred to as an “Entry Period”): (1) May 3, 2011 from 10:00 am Eastern Daylight Time (“EDT”) to 11:59 pm EDT; (2) May 4, 2011 from 10:00 am EDT to 11:59 pm EDT; and (3) May 5, 2011 from 10:00 am EDT to 11:59 pm EDT.  Entries that are submitted before or after each Entry Period will be disqualified.

1. Create and Submit an Entry: t 10:00 am EDT each Entry Period, the URL to a web survey focusing on the history of open source software innovation will be posted on the @AMD Software Twitter handle.  During each respective Entry Period, Entrant must (a) provide their name and a valid email address and (b) complete the five-question survey within sixty (60) seconds of start (the “Entry”).  To be eligible for the random drawing, the Entry must contain the correct answers to all five (5) survey questions.  Sponsor’s determinations of whether answers are deemed correct shall be final.

Limit: One (1) entry per person and per e-mail address per Entry Period.  Any attempt to exceed the maximum number of entries, whether through use of multiple e-mail accounts or any automated system may result in disqualification.  Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, incomplete, invalid, altered, unintelligible or misdirected entries, which will be void.  In the event of a dispute as to who submitted an entry, the person demonstrating to Sponsor’s satisfaction, as determined in Sponsor’s sole discretion, that he or she is the authorized holder of the e-mail account will be deemed to be the entrant.  The “authorized holder of the e-mail account” is the natural person assigned by an Internet access provider, online service provider, Internet service provider or other similar organization to the email address used to post the comment.

1. Potential Winner Selection: On or about May 9, 2011, for each Entry Period, Sponsor will select one potential winner at random from all eligible Entries submitted during the Entry Period.  The potential winners will be notified by the email addresses provided on their Entry after the date of the random draw.  The potential winners must reply to the notification with any requested information within five (5) days of the time the win notification was sent.  After replying to the notification, the potential winners may be required to sign and return to Sponsor, within ten (10) days of the date notice is sent, a confirmation of an Affidavit of Eligibility and Publicity Release (“Affidavit”) in order to claim their prizes.  If the potential winners cannot be contacted, fail to respond to the notification within five (5) days (if applicable), or fail to sign and return the Affidavit within the required time period, they forfeit the applicable prize, and Sponsor may choose an alternate winner (or alternate winners) from among all remaining eligible entrants for the applicable Entry Period.  If the alternate winner(s) cannot be contacted, fails to respond to the notification within five (5) days, or fails to sign and return the Affidavit within the required time period, then he/she will be disqualified and the prize will remain unawarded.

1. Prize: Three winners will each receive one (1) HP USB Flash Drive V125w USB flash drive – 16 GB, approximate retail value $21.99.  The odds of winning the prize depend upon the number of qualified entries received.  Prize value accurate as of April 25, 2011.  Prices and exchange rates may vary, and dealers may sell for less.  Prize must be accepted as awarded and may not be transferred, substituted or redeemed for cash or otherwise, except at Sponsor’s sole discretion or as contemplated herein.  Sponsor reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value if the prize, or any component of the prize, cannot be awarded for any reason.

1. Publicity: Except as set forth herein, all information submitted by entrants in the Contest will be treated according to the Sponsor’s Privacy Policy, which is available at http://www.amd.com/us/aboutamd/Pages/privacy.aspx.  Except where prohibited, participation in the Contest constitutes winners’ consent to Sponsor’s use of each winner’s name, image, likeness, personal testimonial and city of residence for promotional purposes in any media or format, worldwide, without further payment or consideration, including but not limited to posting winner lists online.
2. General Conditions: Sponsor reserves the right to terminate, amend, suspend or modify this Contest in whole or in part, at any time and without notice or obligation, if in Sponsor’s sole discretion, any factor interferes with its proper conduct as contemplated by these Official Rules.  Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, if, for any reason, the Contest is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes beyond the control of Sponsor which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of this Contest, the Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual who tampers with the entry process.  Any attempt by any person to deliberately undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law.  Sponsor’s failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision or of any other provision of these Official Rules.

The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of these Official Rules shall not affect the validity or enforceability of any other provision.  If any provision of the Official Rules is determined to be invalid or otherwise unenforceable, then the Official Rules shall be construed in accordance with their terms as if the invalid or unenforceable provision was not contained therein.

1. Release/Limitations of Liability: Sponsor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and their respective subsidiaries, affiliates, suppliers, distributors, advertising/promotion agencies and each of their respective parent companies and each such company’s officers, directors, employees and agents are not responsible, to the extent permitted by law, for:  (1) any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether caused by entrants, printing errors or omission or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Contest; (2) technical failures of any kind, including, but not limited to malfunctions, interruptions, or disconnections in phone lines or network hardware or software; (3) unauthorized human intervention in any part of the entry process or the Contest; (4) technical or human error which may occur in the administration of the Contest or the processing of entries; or (5) any injury or damage to property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant’s participation in the Contest or receipt or use or misuse of any prize.  If for any reason an entrant’s entry is confirmed to have been erroneously deleted, lost, or otherwise destroyed or corrupted, entrant’s sole remedy is another entry in the Contest provided that if it is not possible to award another entry due to discontinuance of the Contest, or any part of it, for any reason, Sponsor, at its discretion, may elect to hold a random drawing from among all eligible entries received up to the date of discontinuance for any or all of the prizes offered herein.  No more than the stated number of prizes will be awarded. In the event that production, technical, seeding, programming or any other reasons cause more than the stated number of prizes as set forth in these Official Rules to be available and/or claimed  Sponsor reserves the right to award only the stated number of prizes by a random drawing among all legitimate, unawarded, eligible prize claims.

1. Disputes: Except where prohibited, entrant agrees that : (1) any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with this Contest or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California or the appropriate California State Court located in Santa Clara County, California; (2) any and all claims, judgments and awards shall be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering this Contest, but in no event attorneys’ fees; and (3) under no circumstances will entrant be permitted to obtain awards for, and entrant hereby waives all rights to claim, indirect, punitive, incidental and consequential damages and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses, and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased.  All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules or the rights and obligations of the entrant and Sponsor in connection with the Contest, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of California, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of the State of California or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of California.  Some jurisdictions do not allow for limitations of certain remedies or damages and so this provision may not apply to you.
2. Contest Results; Posting of Official Rules: A list of winners and the correct responses to the questionnaire for each Entry Period will be posted for four weeks following the close of the Contest on http://twitter.com/AMDSoftware.  Official Rules will also be available on http://blogs.amd.com/work/.

© 2011 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.  All rights reserved.  AMD, the AMD Arrow logo and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.  Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Justin and I arrived in Haiti along with a camera man on Thursday March 24 and we stayed there until March 29.    Upon flying in to the area, I was immediately struck by the natural beauty of Haiti. On the ground, the aftermath of the earthquake is staggering, but the people are living their lives doing what it takes to survive. There is an incredible amount of support still needed to help the Haitian people get back on their feet and it’s an opportunity for many of us to lend a hand. We stayed with a very kind family in Port-au-Prince who took us everywhere. Just after we arrived, we took off over the mountains to visit the Cine Institute in Jacmel on the southern end of the island. I had no concept of how mountainous Haiti actually is until I made that trip. Wow!  There were breathtaking vistas that we had to stop and film several times – these breaks also allowed me to just put my feet on the ground as my head was spinning. We arrived around noon and were treated to a tour of the new Cine Institute facility and then an amazing lunch where we met the staff.  We spent time with Paula Hyppolite, Director of Ciné Lekol and Andrew Bigosinski, Director of Ciné Services + Technical Supervisor.

Cine Institute

Ciné Institute is a registered Haitian foundation. It provides Haitian youth with the tools they need to get and create jobs in media industries. The Institute provides a university level curriculum in film studies, technical training and media related micro-enterprise opportunities. Students are trained in all aspects of production, while also maintaining a commercial employment division that generates income for students, graduates, the larger community, and the Institute’s on-going programming.

Following the January 12th, 2010 earthquake, the students dug their cameras out of the rubble and worked tirelessly to get news out to the world of Haiti’s terrible tragedy and how it impacted the community of Jacmel. The reports of these Ciné Institute students were the first video news out of Jacmel and have been credited with ensuring rapid relief to the earthquake victims in town.

In addition to filming the earthquake’s aftermath, students searched for survivors, assisted the homeless, buried the dead, unloaded and distributed aid shipments, cared for the injured and helped to raise millions for reconstruction of the nation. With their school destroyed, they lived and worked from tents for months. Then with the help of friends, they took over an old hotel and spent the summer repairing and renovating it. Students worked in teams of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons and painters, rejuvenating the rundown structure and turning it into a beautiful new school.

The Cine students’ and staff members’ courage, selflessness, strength and unity illustrate humanity at its very best. Their behavior and actions are no accident. These young filmmakers are part of Haiti’s hope and future and the new leaders for the nation. These students continue to provide them with access to education and new opportunities, they and their generation will innovate, collaborate and make the sacrifices to rebuild and revive their nation.

Justin and I interviewed faculty and then presented some of the Sony and AMD technology to the student filmmakers.  We gave the faculty three laptops powered by AMD technology, along with licensed copies of the Sony Vegas software.  However, we left Haiti with a great deal more than we brought. It is difficult to put into words the spirit we discovered in these students.  We didn’t run into a single negative person the entire trip — only those dreaming about how to help their country recover. In particular, these Haitian filmmakers and the staff of the Cine Institute have refused to be consumed by the day to day reminders of the earthquake, but are instead looking to re-brand their nation like no filmmaker or journalist could possibly do. Cine Institute is an inspiration.  I thank them for allowing me to visit and for reminding me the importance of every moment and to above all….PRODUCE YOURSELF!

Charlie Boswell is Director of Digital Media and Entertainment for AMD. His postings are his 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.

Data-intensive applications for things like cryptography and weather forecasting have been part of high performance computing (HPC) from the start, ever since the 1950s. But the power of today’s HPC systems — large clusters and purpose-built supercomputers — has made it feasible to tackle bigger versions of familiar tasks and a host of previously intractable problems.

The challenges cover a broad spectrum, including fraud detection, anti-terrorist analysis, social and biological network analysis, semantic analysis, financial and economic modeling, drug discovery and epidemiology, weather and climate modeling, oil exploration, power grid management, and many other areas.  The common denominator is that the problems are large and complex enough to require modeling/simulation using HPC resources.

Where HPC is concerned, IDC defines data-intensive (“big data”) problems broadly to include tasks involving sufficient data volumes and complexity to require HPC-based modeling/simulation. The problems can employ structured data, unstructured data, or both. They can come from traditional HPC domains in government, industry and academia–or they can be upward extensions of commercial problems that have grown large and complex enough at the high end to require HPC. In addition, “big data” can accumulate from the multiple results of iterative problem-solving methods in sectors such as manufacturing (parametric modeling) and financial services (stochastic modeling).  So, small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are also encountering “big data” challenges.

Some problems involve “finding a needle in a haystack,” that is, locating a discrete item that already exists in a database. This style of problem-solving usually employs relational databases (RDBMS) and traditional search methods.

Other problems are more complex and involve “finding patterns in shifting sand.”  Problems of this kind tend to involve unstructured (NoSQL) data and newer methodologies and special software frameworks such as MapReduce and Hadoop. They involve similar tasks: pattern matching, scenario development, behavioral  prediction, anomaly identification, and analysis of relationships using graphs. They’re for things like catching terrorists before they leave the airport, or catching bank fraud before the criminal gets the money, or protecting the US power grid before it crashes. Some of the powerful algorithms in this domain originated in classified government.

The stakes can be high in relation to economic value, competitiveness or national security. Take fraud detection as an example. Business fraud detection could save millions of dollars, and government fraud detection could save billions. Recently, EBay bought supercomputers to combat fraud in the PayPal system.  Italy’s big government agency, INPS, acquired a supercomputer to attack health care fraud on a national basis.

The U.S. may be heading in the same direction. The FBI estimates that 10% of transactions in federal health care programs – Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs and so forth – are fraudulent, costing about $150 billion a year. Price Waterhouse Coopers thinks it’s three times that amount.  Today, the health care data is spread across five gigantic databases. As a result, no one can see all the data at once, fraud is detected after the fact, and the government recovers only about $1 billion a year.

Oak Ridge National Lab has submitted a proposal to unify all these databases and perform fraud detection using a Cray supercomputer nicknamed “Jaguar” that features 224,000 AMD Opteron™ processor cores. This solution could save $50 billion a year by analyzing the data in near-real time. The same methods could be applied to other criminal behavior, terrorist activities and many of the other applications I mentioned.

Most “big data” problems requiring HPC-level solutions will be run on large clusters, but the most daunting data-intensive problems are already going to more purpose-built HPC systems (e.g., the Ebay/PayPal, INPS and U.S. federal  health care examples). IDC expects this trend to continue.

In sum, “big data” has long been an important part of the HPC market, but recent technology advances have given data-intensive computing much higher potential as a horizontal market. It’s back to the future, with a new twist.

Steve Conway is Research Vice President, High Performance Computing for IDC. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

The first question that follows that declaration is: “What is Big Data?”

As will become clear in future blogs, Big Data isn’t a specific technology, though many link it to Hadoop and MapReduce.  It isn’t about any particular type of data, though many link it to unstructured, social media, or machine generated data.  It isn’t even about solving a specific problem, though many link it to goals such as fraud detection or smart grids.

Big Data is about the use of technologies (hardware and software) to manage, mine and analyze large collections of information to solve a wide range of complex problems.  Virtually all of these Big Data projects address one or more of the following challenges:

• Dealing with heterogeneous data from multiple sources, often structured and unstructured (e.g., a diagnostic system that can simultaneously scan medical images, medical/pharmaceutical journals, epidemiological/genetic databases, and a patient’s own records)
• Dealing with high volumes (in terms of both size and rate) of data that are dynamic and constantly changing (e.g., a smart grid electric metering system that delivers 3,000 times as much data per site as traditional systems)
• Dealing with unpredictable content that has no apparent schema or structure (e.g., scanning public twitter streams of people praising/complaining about a new product launch to anticipate demand spikes or brand image challenges)
• Enabling real time or near real time collection, analysis and use of information and conclusions.

This final challenge, getting from data to value in hours, minutes, seconds, or less, is the “new” development that makes Big Data so important.  Government agencies and companies in industries such as retail, healthcare, and telecommunications dealt with large volumes of information for decades.  The perception that Big Data projects are also major science projects that are expensive, risky, and require skills not found in many traditional IT organizations remains the biggest barrier to broader adoption.  In the past, the ability to find, analyze and use the data often required massive investments in people or computing resources. Results were measured in months or at best weeks (usually, long after the danger or opportunity passed).

If you did a little investigating inside some of your own business units, you would likely be surprised what’s already there in terms of Big Data projects.  Thanks to a sustained and dramatic decline in the costs of compute power, memory and storage capacity (along with new data handling techniques like Hadoop and MapReduce), it’s possible for some bright folks in your organization to effectively deal with all of the data variety, volume, and complexity problems.  Even better, they can do so while it’s still possible to take advantage of the knowledge.

One final word of caution, however.  Many of these Big Data projects are best described as “junior science projects” with a small core of servers and storage assets. They aren’t the next iteration of a Google-like compute grid, at least not yet.  From a business and IT governance standpoint, however, these kinds of “junior science projects” can quickly turn into the next “Manhattan project” with company-wide and industry-wide business, organizational, and legal consequences.

For your IT organization, integrating Big Data initiatives and requirements into data center and IT services plans will be vital.  IDC expects many of your primary IT suppliers to make sustained investments via acquisition and new product packaging in solutions that target the “Big Data” environment.   Beyond more classic IT product companies, however, IDC also expects Big Data to be an area where leading cloud service providers (the early leaders in developing and deploying Big IT solutions for their internal needs) will launch more targeted cloud-based offerings as part of expanding their market reach into critical business areas. Expect that some smart team will soon be coming to talk with you about this great new idea that will transform the company, your customers or your community.

Welcome to the world of Big Data.

Richard Villars is Vice President of Storage and IT Executive Strategies with IDC. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

As a long-time supporter of Linux and the open source community, AMD is proud to be a silver sponsor of this year’s event. We firmly believe that a robust ecosystem built on collaboration, open standards and common tools is critical to innovation in software development. Linux reaching its 20^th year is another testament to the importance of open source development to date.

In conjunction with this year’s summit, the Linux Foundation is launching a campaign to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the movement.  What will you do to celebrate? How has Linux impacted your work? How will Linux continue to make an impact in the years ahead?

We’d love to hear your comments.

For more on AMD’s support of the open source ecosystem, please visit AMD Developer Central and our developer blog at: http://blogs.amd.com/developer/ to read about our work with the Apache Software Foundation as well as open source tools such as Tapper.

Chris Schlaeger is the Director of AMD’s Operating System Research. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

AMD Professional Graphics is working closely with Barco, a global technology company designing and developing visualization solutions for a variety of selected professional markets, and its medical imaging division to bring AMD Eyefinity technology to its customer base. Barco offers a line of mammography, surgical, diagnostic and clinical review displays and the company relies on ATI FirePro™ professional graphics to control these displays.

Radiology professionals working with MRI, CT and Mammography medical imaging systems need multiple displays to review patient information and their images simultaneously, or review several large scans at once. While using more than one display is not a new concept for medical imaging, the ability to drive three large, high resolution 5 or 10 megapixel displays from one professional graphics card is.[i]

With the enhanced power and performance of ATI FirePro professional graphics and AMD Eyefinity technology, Barco’s MXRT display controllers allow clinicians to use three displays to view data or images across multiple windows for increased efficiency and accuracy. Additionally, an emerging trend in medical imaging is the art of taking several individual MRI or CT scans and combining them to create 3D reconstructions. You can see an example of this in the image included below.

Image provided by Barco

ATI FirePro™ professional graphics enable high quality, high resolution 10-bit grayscale 2D output for medical imaging professionals, providing 1,024 shades of gray, while delivering high performance 3D acceleration. These enhanced visual capabilities are enabled by one ATI FirePro™ professional graphics card, reducing cost and complexity while enabling radiology professionals and doctors to make more accurate diagnoses.

As medical imaging and high resolution images continue to play an important role in medical diagnosis, AMD and Barco are focused on meeting customer demands for the highest possible visual experience.

Mitch Furman is a senior product manager, Professional Graphics at AMD. His postings are his 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.

It’s not just curriculum that’s moving online.  Students are connected to the Internet on campus for browsing and social networking; they’re researching papers, sharing photos and even buying books.  In some cases, campus book sales are losing so much ground to the Internet that bookstores are turning to alternative services to keep afloat – offering everything from dry cleaning to flu shots.

The need for technology to enhance education is so evident that textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) recently announced a $100 million fund aimed at supporting emerging education initiatives including technology development.  Similarly, the US Department of Education is demonstrating its commitment to tech-enhanced education through the Investing in Innovation Fund, which was part of the American Recovery Act.

Technology resources are not only needed to keep pace in the classroom, but also to inspire today’s students to enter the fields of study that contribute to and create tomorrow’s advanced technology. AMD, along with our OEM partners, has seen opportunities for schools to build educational programming to ensure we bolster the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills of our future leaders. Have a look at this inspiring video about AMD engineer Brad Burgess in the “change the Equation” online contest. (Vote with your “like” on Facebook if it inspired you.)

Through programs that encourage the use of technology in the classroom, educators can now offer a curriculum that utilizes the best available technologies – from hardware and software to online solutions.  Students can expand their education and their imagination by taking advantage of visually intense, multimedia content that literally makes the subject jump off the page.  In our work with schools through OEM partners including HP, we’ve seen educators using everything from distance learning applications to educational gaming.

For example, Alexandria City Public Schools have distributed AMD-based HP laptops to each student, demonstrating that the 1:1 student:technology model can positively support the educational systems already in place and help youth gain the STEM skills needed for success.

HP’s Thomas Kenny, Vice President of Public Sector Sales for the US, spoke to this idea when he shared his experience of providing computers to youth and educators in Alexandria.

“We received extremely positive feedback from the program in Alexandria.  Today, their teachers are offering a truly 21^st century education that will equip them with the tools they need prior to seeking higher education.  With programs like these to build tech proficiency, our youth will be able to contend on a world-wide level with the basic skills needed for jobs in the future,” said Kenny. “AMD has been a tremendous partner to us in Alexandria – and in other projects around the country – in helping foster tech education in schools.”

You can find additional information on AMD’s efforts in education by visiting: AMD Changing the Game.

Steve Kester is the Director of US Government Affairs at AMD. His postings are his 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.

So, at AMD, we’re kicking off of our “pinning down the cloud” giveaway and debate as we gear up for VMworld 2010.  We’d like to know how you are getting to the root of this emerging technology and hear how you define cloud computing. And, in the coming weeks, we’ll have two more questions to discuss as we navigate the cloud.  If your answer is judged and voted to be the best, you’ll win a Dell Zino HD Desktop PC with AMD Athlon 64 X2 3250E Dual-Core Processor & Windows 7 Home Premium, with an approximate retail value of $499.00.  In all you will have three chances to win.

Here’s the deal:

This week’s question is: What is the cloud to you?

Here’s how you can answer (in two sentences or less):

• Post a comment on this blog
• Tweet it using the hashtag #VMworldAMD
• Post a comment on AMD’s Facebook page
• Post a comment on the VMworld 2010 Discussion Board

The five most creative, original and thoughtful responses will qualify as finalists. Finalists will be included in a poll on the AMD@Work blog the week VMworld commences, August 30, to allow our readers to determine the winner

Each week leading up to VMworld a new question will be issued (three in total), giving you more chances to win. Keep your answers concise and to the point – remember the limit is two sentences. Our goal is to get right to the heart of the issue!

For full contest rules, including how to participate, what you can win, and how your entry will be judged, please visit this page.

With that, it’s time to get thinking. Creativity encouraged.

Tracey Blanton is a Product Marketing Manager 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.

But occasionally we hear “but I don’t need that many cores.”  Of course, there are always going to be environments where 2P is all you need – after all, around 75% of the market is 2P, so there is definitely going to be a need for those platforms.

Well Dell has now brought out a solution for their customers that want the performance of 12-core AMD Opteron™ processors but may not need the full 32 or 48 cores that can come in a 4P system.

The new Dell PowerEdge R715 is the little brother of the PowerEdge R815, bringing a 2P design to the PowerEdge portfolio.  Balanced for consolidation, virtualization, database, and general business applications, the Dell PowerEdge R715 server offers great price for performance with up to 24 processor cores and 16 DIMM slots.

And if you are a Dell customer, you might already be utilizing the R815 for your computing workloads.  You’ll find an amazing amount of commonality between the R815 and the R715, which should help reduce servicing and management activities. The little brother shares a lot of DNA with its bigger brother and the resemblance goes beyond the face (the system bezel).  You’ll find all of the service spares, external ports and component locations are common across the systems, as well as a lot of the system software (including advanced systems management capabilities).

The system can accommodate either an AMD SR5670 and SR5650 chipset to help drive more I/O expandability.  The 2U chassis has plenty of expandability with 6 PCIe gen 2 slots, a storage controller slot, as well as internal dual SD card slots for added redundancy at the hypervisor level. And those two chipset I/O hubs help make sure that data is moving rapidly, so even heavy workloads get an extra boost.

And when you look at the value of this platform relative to other 2P platforms in the market, the case for the PowerEdge R715 gets even stronger.  There are plenty of applications in the data center where this platform can find a home, so it is really worth taking a look at Dell’s latest offering.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for Server/Workstation products at AMD.  His postings are his 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.

Professionals have been asking about better tools to get the job done more efficiently and with less waste. This new line of ATI FirePro 3D graphics cards offer a wide variety of features that are aimed specifically at those needs:

• OpenCL™ support – ATI FirePro supports OpenCL as an industry standard API with multi-platform development for enabling broad adoption of heterogeneous computing.² ATI FirePro is enabled for accelerated compute when OpenCL supported applications come to market in the near future.
• Microsoft® DirectX® 11 and OpenGL 4.0 support – ATI FirePro is designed to meet those solutions using DirectX 11 and OpenGL® 4.0 where great performance, scalability and reliability are required.  AMD continues to work with developers spanning a wide variety of professional needs. Not only is AMD offering direct support to developers, as they bring OpenCL, OpenGL and DirectX 11 applications to market, but AMD also offers an ongoing certification process designed to ensure that ATI FirePro graphics work efficiently with major applications.

It’s encouraging to see continued market acceptance for these products as well. For example, leading workstation provider, Dell, is offering new solutions for design engineers and digital content creation professionals. ATI FirePro™ V7800, ATI FirePro™  V5700 and ATI FirePro™ V8700 power Dell Precision R5400, T7500, T5500, T3500 and T1500 Workstations available around the world.  Don Maynard, senior product manager of the Dell Precision Tower Workstations, has recognized the value that ATI FirePro brings to the market.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPidi7-JyHk

But you don’t have to take my word about these cards. AMD has been recognized by a variety of news outlets for the new line of ATI FirePro products.  Awards have been received from 3D Professor, Hot Hardware and PC Perspective as testament to the outstanding performance of these new graphics solutions.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that you can’t be productive without having the proper tools. Both AMD and Dell have teamed up to offer professionals the essential tools they need to help them to be both productive and efficient for virtually whatever project they have planned for the future.

Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics 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.

1. ATI Eyefinity technology can support multiple displays using a single enabled ATI FirePro™ professional graphics card; the number of supported displays varies by card model. Microsoft® Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, or Linux® is required in order to support more than 2 displays. Depending on the card model, native DisplayPort™ connectors and/or certified DisplayPort™ active or passive adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your card’s DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector(s) may be required. ATI Eyefinity technology is supported by the ATI FirePro™ V8800, ATI FirePro™ V7800, ATI FirePro™ V5800 and the ATI FirePro™ V4800 professional graphics cards. See www.amd.com/firepro for details.
2. OpenCL™ compliant driver and SDK release scheduled in 2010.

Of course, going with a standards-based approach can have its challenges.  For example, ATCA specifies the mechanicals (14 8U high blades) and power (blades at 150W or 200W); meeting those specifications can require some help.  For that reason, a new ATCA-compliant blade based on the six-core AMD Opteron 4100 Series processor, at 40W or 65W, provides a very compelling solution that can provide up to 88% improvement in performance-per-watt², up to 66% improvement in memory bandwidth³, and up to 33% improvement in I/O bandwidth⁴ over previous generation embedded AMD processors in the EE power band.

Another key market that can benefit from AMD Embedded Solutions and an industry standard form factor is enterprise storage.  There is a tremendous increase in digital content, and need for continuous data protection and disaster recovery.  One cost effective standards-based solution is Storage Bridge Bay.  The 1U small form factor canister requires low power – 100W or 150W total.  A solution based on the new AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform can provide high performance network connectivity and disk throughput.  The AMD Opteron 4100 Series processor has two 16-bit lanes of HyperTransport™ 3.0 Technology links for up to 25GB/s peak bandwidth per link between processors and I/O. This is a 33% improvement in I/O bandwidth over the previous embedded AMD processor implementations and helps enterprise storage systems move data quicker.  And of course, there’s the reliability of the AMD platform, which is of utmost importance for storage systems.

No matter the market, embedded systems can significantly benefit from multiple AMD 5600 Series chipsets for tremendous I/O connectivity to PCIe® Gen 2 interfaces such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Infiniband, FCoE. This data throughput can meet the I/O performance required by today’s systems and be ready for tomorrow’s demands.

And stay tuned, because the AMD Opteron 4000 Series platform’s performance and low power will be compatible with the planned next-generation “Bulldozer” processor and this will be a very exciting product for embedded systems.

Dave Jessel is the manager of AMD’s Embedded Enterprise market development.  His postings are his 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.

¹ 1 As of June 8, 2010, AMD Opteron™ processor Models 4162 EE  and 4164 EE have the lowest known power per core of any server processor, at 5.83W (35W/6 = 5.83W/core).  Intel’s L5609 is 10W/core (40W/4 cores). See http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor/xeon5000/specifications.

²Internal testing of AMD Opteron 4100 Model 41GLEE (6c 40W 1.8GHz) versus published results of AMD Opteron 2300 Model 23KS (4c 50W 2GHz)

³AMD Opteron 4100 Processor 2channel DDR3-1333 vs AMD Opteron 2300 series 2 channel DDR2-800

⁴AMD Opteron 4100 Processor HT3 6400MT/s (25.6GB/s) vs AMD Opteron 2300 HT3 4800MT/s (19.2GB/s)