Dynamic control flow in large-scale machine learning

Dynamic control flow in large-scale machine learning Yu et al., EuroSys’18

(If you don’t have ACM Digital Library access, the paper can be accessed either by following the link above directly from The Morning Paper blog site).

In 2016 the Google Brain team published a paper giving an overview of TensorFlow, “TensorFlow: a system for large-scale machine learning.” This paper is a follow-up, taking a much deeper look at how TensorFlow supports dynamic control flow, including extending automatic differentiation to control flow constructs.

Embedding control flow within the dataflow graph

With a wide range of machine learning models in use, and rapid exploration of new techniques, a machine learning system needs to be expressive and flexible to support both research and production use cases. Given the ever larger models and training sets, a machine learning system also needs to be scalable. These means both using individual devices efficiently (anything from phones to custom ASCIs in datacenters), and also supporting parallel execution over multiple devices.

Both the building blocks of machine learning and the architectures built up using these blocks have been changing rapidly. This pace appears likely to continue. Therefore, rather than defining RNNs, MoEs Continue reading

Pivotal Container Service (PKS) Integration With NSX-T Data Center: A lab study with Tips

Contributions from: Alka Gupta, Prasad Kalpurekkal

Pivotal Container Service (PKS) aims to simplify how enterprises deploy, run and manage Kubernetes clusters on any cloud. For detailed documentation of PKS installation and configuration, go here. For details on configuring PKS with NSX-T Data Center, go here.

Every enterprise wants to run containers in production. However, primary questions being asked are: “How do I get Kubernetes to work in my data center? How do I simplify deployment of Kubernets clusters? What about Networking and Security? ”

PKS answers these questions with a feature set tailored to the requirements of the enterprises.  Read about PKS features in detail here.

One of the features PKS offers is tight integration with NSX-T Data Center, enabling advanced networking and security for container based emerging application architectures, just as it does for traditional 3-tier apps. In these environments, NSX-T Data Center provides Layer 3 container networking and advanced networking services such as built-in load balancing, micro-segmentation, multi-tenancy, central visibility with a central SDN controller, network topology choices and more. We demonstrated this at the Network Field Day 17 which you can see here.

In this blog, we call out the work done at VMware Global Solutions Partner lab on configuring Pivotal Continue reading

Introducing “Kernel of Truth” — a Cumulus Networks podcast!

There’s no doubt that we’re in the gilded age of podcasts. Anyone you ask has at least one or two podcasts that they love to listen to and won’t stop talking about! But you’re probably tired of hearing that one friend repeat every single episode of “This American Life.” You need a new, engaging show that focuses on thought leadership and the topics in data center networking that you care about. Something to liven up your commute and make a long work day fly by. Something to help you stay up to date and relevant in your networking  knowledge, hear about real examples of innovation in the data center and turn you into a super star employee that shoots up the career ladder. If that’s what you’ve been looking for, your search is finally over.

Seven years ago, Cumulus Networks took the world by storm and rocked the data center. Today, we’re giving the podcasting world a healthy dose of Cumulus goodness — introducing the official Cumulus Networks podcast, “Kernel of Truth!”

Why are we starting a podcast? In addition to wanting to share our thoughts and insight about all things networking, including automation, disaggregation, data center interconnect Continue reading

The Top 5 Fastest Growing Jobs In The IT Sector


There’s no easy path to success in the IT sector, but there are certainly ways to increase your chances of having a rewarding career. One of the ways is knowing which fields in IT have the most potential for future growth. There are a lot of great choices out there, but as technology changes, so does the demand for certain positions. That’s why it’s crucial to plan for your training in advance, and lock in on an area where forecasters expect rapid growth over the next few years. Choose from the following list of the fastest growing IT jobs to land a rewarding position that’s certain to last.


1. Data Scientist


Not surprisingly, data science is one of the fastest growing and most lucrative jobs in the IT sector. Data scientists wrestle with big data on a daily basis. They use their advanced skills in programming, mathematics, and statistics to organize enormous amounts of jumbled data into a more usable form.
The work of the data scientist doesn’t stop there. Once they make this data more manageable, they use their analytical skills to solve a variety of business and financial problems. These skills include industry specific knowledge, contextual awareness, and Continue reading

BrandPost: Using AI and Predictive Analytics to Improve the Data Center

Digital transformation requires companies to be nimbler, more proactive, and more responsive to customers. Our always-on culture has begotten the need for always-available data.Meanwhile, the tolerance for downtime continues to plummet. Whether it’s a bank customer conducting a financial transaction or a salesperson submitting an order, a processing delay is no longer acceptable. An interruption like this sets off an IT scramble to determine how to fix that “app-data gap” — i.e., what’s causing delays in data delivery to applications.To alleviate the app-data gap and improve data-center operations, many organizations have turned to flash storage, which speeds delivery and improves performance. And while it does provide much-improved efficiency and speed than traditional hard drive disk storage, flash alone doesn’t solve other problems like configuration and interoperability issues that cause the app-data gap.To read this article in full, please click here