How the cloud took over the cables
When the cloud emerged as a concept, it referred to computer services delivered remotely. Bandwidth was cheap, and it made sense to outsource and centralise computing. Physical location, and the physical network, seemed to have become irrelevant. This has turned out not to be true...
How the blockchain is reshaping the data center
Such is the hype around Bitcoin and blockchain technologies that numerous companies have seen their share prices rise simply by changing their names to include one of those words. In their rush to invest in the hot new thing, some investors don't check whether the companies actually have anything to do with blockchain.
Dutch data centers concerned about future electricity availability
The Dutch data center industry is crucial to the economy of the Netherlands, but its growth may be hindered by challenges to the local power supply infrastructure. In a recent letter to the Netherlands Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate, the Dutch Data Center Association (DDA) warned about limitations to the Dutch energy infrastructure, especially in Schiphol Rijk, Amsterdam Zuidoost and the Amsterdam Science Park.
The 5-point plan to successfully market your supercomputer (with added blue lights).
When my wife tells me I have to go to a dinner party, I usually explain to our hosts that I do “marketing within the supercomputing and data center industry”......and that normally rules out a second invitation.
Neural network banter – Rumours from the trade show floor
Many great adventures start with naivety, sadly this blog was one of them. My intention was to provide a high-level overview of the advancements in Deep Neural Networks (DNN training) techniques during the last few years. Unfortunately, I struggle to pontificate about something I don’t comprehend well, so starting with the popular Convolutional Neural Networks I rapidly discovered a multitude of its variants. No worries, how hard can it be to research each new term/concept related to Coder/Decoder networks?
Why it’s time to retire the ‘other people’s computers’ criticism of the cloud
“There is no such thing as the cloud, only other people’s computers.” I’ve hosted seminars with senior IT professionals for several years now and whenever the subject is ‘the cloud’, someone always delivers this line. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s become a cliché.
Death, taxes and rack power density
While not as certain as death and taxes, there are signs that high-density racks will finally become more commonplace thanks to AI and other compute intensive workloads.
Estimating the energy use in Bitcoin mining: A near-impossible task and a moving target
Headlines over the past several months addressing energy use and Bitcoin mining would have one believe the world’s supply of power is about to be devoted solely to large computers trying to solve complex algorithms in the global pursuit of profit. Is this really the case?
Staying secure - Why security continues to be of paramount importance for data centers
You can find data centers in all sorts of places these days. As well as lurking in anonymous grey sheds on the edge of town, they're underground, up mountains, on ships, even underwater. The reasons for this plethora of seemingly bizarre choices of location are many and varied but security is clearly a key driver, and from what I can see - an increasing one.
Regtech promises a future with agile compliance and smarter regulation
The digital technology era has brought us adtech, fintech, fittech, medtech and many more buzzwords. A new one has grown in popularity over the last year or so: Regtech.
Heavy metal and tag lines – Rumours from the trade show floor
On the cusp of spring I regularly refresh my GPU technology suntan at the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose. This year was fascinating as the speed and scale of both AI and Virtual Reality industries has leapt forward. Here are my takeaways...
Clean air takes fresh thinking
You might think that the issue of air purity in data centers is done and dusted, so to speak. We all know how to handle electronics, and the dust and pollutants in air are well understood. However it turns out that air contamination is a live issue and attempts to clean up other parts of the data center environment could have unintended consequences on the atmosphere inside the data center.
Deep learning for autonomous cars
Since Sebastian Thrum and his team used machine learning to win the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005, machine learning and deep learning have been an integral part of developing autonomous vehicle technology. Great progress is being made, but complex questions remain. My latest blog looks at these issues.