Wringing Cost and Complexity Out of HPC

The race toward exascale supercomputing gets a lot of attention, as it should. Driving up top-end performance levels in high performance computing (HPC) is essential to generate new insights into the fundamental laws of physics, the origins of the universe, global climate systems, and more. The wow factor is huge.

There is another area of growth in HPC that is less glamorous, but arguably even more important. It is the increasing use of small to mid-sized clusters by individuals and small groups that have long been reliant on workstations to handle their most compute-intensive tasks. Instead of a small number

Wringing Cost and Complexity Out of HPC was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

45% off Bestrix Universal Tablet Car Headrest Cradle – Deal Alert

Road trip this holiday season? The Bestrix universal headrest tablet mount provides an easy solution for using your tablet while mobile. It's designed for easy installation and removal, and instantly turn your car’s backseat into an entertainment center without blocking any of your tablet’s buttons or jacks. The mount can hold all tablets including all versions of Apple iPads, Samsung Tab and all tablets up to 11’’. Its 360 degree rotation feature allows all users to have a perfect view of the tablet from various or changing positions in the car. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from nearly 200 people on Amazon (see reviews) where its typical list price of $36 has been reduced 45% to $20. See the discounted Bestrix headrest tablet mount on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hyper convergence leads to humanless datacenters: Nutanix CEO Pandey

An enterprise cloud platform company, Nutanix helps companies thread the path of hyper converged infra. ComputerWorld India had an extensive chat with Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder & CEO, Nutanix on hyper convergence, IPO debut, and competitive landscape. "Hyper convergence is a pit stop in the true journey towards an invisible infrastructure for companies. One can spin up a firewall or storage array through a written code than buy the hardware for the humans to rack and stack it," said Pandey during his recent India visit.Edited Excerpts:Tech OEMs, big or small, end-to-end or niche, are all hitching a ride on the hyper converged Infra bandwagon. How do you demystify `hyper converged' for enterprises?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hyper convergence leads to humanless datacenters: Nutanix CEO Pandey

An enterprise cloud platform company, Nutanix helps companies thread the path of hyper converged infra. ComputerWorld India had an extensive chat with Dheeraj Pandey, Co-founder & CEO, Nutanix on hyper convergence, IPO debut, and competitive landscape. "Hyper convergence is a pit stop in the true journey towards an invisible infrastructure for companies. One can spin up a firewall or storage array through a written code than buy the hardware for the humans to rack and stack it," said Pandey during his recent India visit.Edited Excerpts:Tech OEMs, big or small, end-to-end or niche, are all hitching a ride on the hyper converged Infra bandwagon. How do you demystify `hyper converged' for enterprises?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Three Considerations for Planning your Docker Datacenter Deployment

Congratulations! You’ve decided to make the change your application environment with Docker Datacenter. You’re now on your way to greater agility, portability and control within your environment. But what do you need to get started? In this blog, we will cover things you need to consider (strategy, infrastructure, migration) to ensure a smooth POC and migration to production.

1. Strategy

Strategy involves doing a little work up-front to get everyone on the same page. This stage is critical to align expectations and set clear success criteria for exiting the project. The key focus areas are to determining your objective, plan out how to achieve it and know who should be involved.

Set the objective – This is a critical step as it helps to set clear expectations, define a use case and outline the success criteria for exiting a POC. A common objective is to enable developer productivity by implementing a Continuous Integration environment with Docker Datacenter.

Plan how to achieve it – With a clear use case and outcome identified, the next step is to look at what is required to complete this project. For a CI pipeline, Docker is able to standardize the development environment, provide isolation of the applications and their dependencies Continue reading

‘Wireless security at its finest’

The person who submitted the above photo to Reddit’s section devoted to IT rants presumably does not believe it depicts wireless security at its finest. In fact, the sarcasm oozes.However, not everyone in the forum held such a dim view.“There is nothing wrong with this,” writes another user. “It is public wi-fi. It has a slight security advantage over an open network in that it makes it more difficult to eavesdrop. The (would-be) attacker also has to capture the handshake when a client associates.”There were supportive variations on that theme.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Wireless security at its finest’

The person who submitted the above photo to Reddit’s section devoted to IT rants presumably does not believe it depicts wireless security at its finest. In fact, the sarcasm oozes.However, not everyone in the forum held such a dim view.“There is nothing wrong with this,” writes another user. “It is public wi-fi. It has a slight security advantage over an open network in that it makes it more difficult to eavesdrop. The (would-be) attacker also has to capture the handshake when a client associates.”There were supportive variations on that theme.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Research chip modeled after the brain aims to bring smarts to computers

The dream of creating intelligent computers has inspired the development of exotic chips based on the structure of the brain, which operates in mysterious ways. Some researchers are making such chips from components found in today's computers.Using components pulled off store shelves, researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have made a chip for intelligent computers that can learn. The chips are structured to discover patterns through probabilities and association, helping with decision making.The researchers are using off-the-shelf, reprogrammable circuits called FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to simulate the way neurons and synapses in a brain operate. The chip was made as part of the university's DANNA neuromorphic software project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Research chip modeled after the brain aims to bring smarts to computers

The dream of creating intelligent computers has inspired the development of exotic chips based on the structure of the brain, which operates in mysterious ways. Some researchers are making such chips from components found in today's computers.Using components pulled off store shelves, researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have made a chip for intelligent computers that can learn. The chips are structured to discover patterns through probabilities and association, helping with decision making.The researchers are using off-the-shelf, reprogrammable circuits called FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to simulate the way neurons and synapses in a brain operate. The chip was made as part of the university's DANNA neuromorphic software project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to integrate disruptive technologies with IT outsourcing contracts

In the era of digital disruption, the ability to successfully implement new technologies such as mobility, big data and analytics systems, cloud computing options, or robotics for competitive advantage is critical. In some cases, going to an existing IT service provider may not be the best way to do so. However, in many cases, there are advantages to working with incumbent supplier. Doing so may enable IT outsourcing customers to leverage existing contractual commitments and terms to accelerate the contracting process.Business and IT leaders may want a trusted partner to manage their entire technology environment. By expanding the scope of an existing deal, the customer can retain integrated performance standards and service levels for the entire environment and maintain streamlined governance processes. It also may be a way to minimize any transition or termination costs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google, LinkedIn leaders on tech’s responsibility for lost jobs

SAN FRANCISCO — The pressing issue of modern technology's negative impact on jobs was largely ignored during the 2016 presidential election, according to California's Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who spoke this week at the Code Enterprise conference. Today's society has deficiencies in education and regulation, and it lacks the collective mindset necessary to transform tech challenges into opportunities, Newsom said. The roles large technology companies play in eliminating jobs, and the responsibilities they should bear to fight this problem, are rarely discussed. However, senior executives at Google and LinkedIn addressed the issue on stage at Code Enterprise, telling the audience of business leaders that it is paramount for tech titans to minimize job losses by creating new opportunities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

7 reasons cloud migrations fail (free online course)

Cloud migrations can fail for a variety of reasons, such as a cloud strategy that isn’t aligned with business goals, cultural resistance or lack of a viable cloud security plan. Managing these migration risks is the focus of a free online course presented by training company Logical Operations Inc., in partnership with IDG Enterprise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Hottest Android Black Friday 2016 deals on tablets, phones & more

It’s a lot easier to find Black Friday 2016 deals for Android smartphones and tablets than it is for competing Apple products, so if you’re a fan of Google’s Linux kernel-based mobile OS or willing to give it a shot, then Best Buy, Target and others are more than happy to accommodate on Nov. 25. Here’s where to look if you want to compare Android products to those from Apple or running Windows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ICQ, the original instant messenger, turns 20

About 20 years ago, I started driving co-workers within listening distance crazy with constant chirps of "Uh oh!" emanating from my laptop. It was all coming from a nifty little program I'd discovered called ICQ, which let me talk to friends in real time. Created by a group of Israeli college students who eventually formed the company Mirabilis to support development of the app, ICQ stood for "I seek you" and was intended as a way for Windows users to communicate much in the same way Unix users could send real-time messages. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here