A few months back, in "Will Azul Reign on the Server Market?," I wrote about Azul Systems and its new approach to computing named 'network-attach processing,' similar to the NAS approach for data storage. Now Shahin Khan, VP and CMO at the company, has written a rather provocative article for The Register, "Get ready to buy chips by the kilo." He argues that we soon should be prepared to order CPUs by the thousands and be ready for some new language. "Do we say: 2.5 kilo CPUs? Do we call this kilo core, or mega core processing? And since it goes way past current multi-core technology, do we call it poly-core technology?" Jon Udell, from InfoWorld, also commented Khan's views in "VM-enabled polycore computing." Read more.
Basically, Shahin Khan says that we are now used to very large numbers when we talk about memory or disk space for servers, but that the vast majority of us is still counting processors using single digits.
But when it comes to CPUs, we still mostly dabble in single digits. An 8-way server feels like a pretty large system. The 32-way, 64-way, and 200-way systems feel just huge. Even when we scale out, anything beyond a couple of hundred CPUs begins to challenge our ability to manage and operate the systems. It’s no accident that they call these systems a "complex."
A major shift is coming. Over the next few years, your ordinary applications will be able to tap into systems with, say, 7,000 CPUs, 50 tera bytes of memory, and 20 peta bytes of storage. In 2005, Azul Systems will ship compute pools with as many as 1,200 CPUs per a single standard rack (1.2 kilo cores! -- I like the sound of that!)
Of course, these remarks are more valid for the commercial data centers. In the scientific and technical segments of computing, there are already many existing superclusters using thousands of processors.
Khan explains how this trend towards large numbers of processors will influence application design and offer new possibilities for managing a data center.
Deployment and administration of applications would also change dramatically. Do you ever worry about how much storage an individual user might need? Probably not. [.] Do you ever worry about the utilization level of an individual byte of memory? I hope not. You have so many bytes that you measure utilization at the aggregate level.
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Logically, he doesn't forget to mention his company.
If you had hundreds of CPUs in a miniaturized "big-iron" system that were available to your applications, you could adopt the same strategy for applications. No need to plan capacity for each individual application. Let all of your users share a huge compute pool and plan capacity across many applications. In the process, you also fundamentally change the economics of computing. Well, that’s exactly what Azul Systems is pioneering.
This is a whole new way of looking at the CPU, and therefore, the function of "compute." This approach is gaining mainstream acceptance. The industry has reached 2 or 4 CPUs on a chip for large symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems; and for systems limited to one chip, tens of functional units in one CPU. Some companies have announced future chips with as many as 8 CPUs on a single chip. With 24 CPUs on a chip that can be used in an SMP system, Azul has already set the bar much higher. And that’s just the beginning!
And before wishing us the best for 2005, Khan imagines a possible title for a 2005 press release.
Poly-core Technology to Enable Kilo Core Processing. Happy Apps Hail Freedom!!
Like in September 2004, I still don't know if Azul Systems will be successful. But at least, I admire them for their innovative approach to computing with the additional risk of using their own custom chips.
Sources: Shahin Khan, VP and CMO at Azul Systems, for The Register, January 11, 2005; and various websites
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Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Chips
Computers
Hardware
IT
Software.