As part of its new big-data-focused XDATA initiative, DARPA has invested $3 million in a startup called Continuum Analytics. The company’s aim is to extend Python’s prowess in scientific computing into the world of big data and analytics. Read more »
Amazon Web Services has introduced its latest instance — an 88-core, 240 GB SSD, 244 GB RAM and 10 GbE behemoth designed for real-time analytics with software like SAP HANA, as well as demanding scientific workloads. Read more »
According to Amazon Web Services Chief Data Scientist Matt Wood, big data and cloud computing are nearly a match made in heaven. Limitless, on-demand and inexpensive resources open up new worlds of possibility, and a central platform makes it easy for communities to share huge datasets. Read more »
Autodesk now offers a cloud-based version of its simulation software for a fraction of the cost of most similar on-premise options. While large enterprises might not being willing to make the jump yet, some innovative startups are already on board and testing the future. Read more »
Thanks to the popularity of everything from social media sites such as Twitter to email to mobile phones, it’s easier than ever to get data about who’s connected to whom. With the right tools, we can apply it solve certain problems faster and easier than ever. Read more »
Benchmarking results from Zencoder show that Amazon Web Services beats out Google’s Compute Engine in a test of a specific CPU-intensive workload. Compute Engine’s performance was hindered by a lack of HPC instances, which Google could one day add. But it’s nice to see real-world comparisons. Read more »
Bina Technologies emerged from stealth mode last week and is bringing an Apple-like business model to genomics. The company relies on its Bina Box to make genome analysis faster than ever before possible without the benefit of having a supercomputer and a research network on hand. Read more »
If you don’t think venture capitalists and other investors love all things big data, think again. In the past three days alone, companies claiming some connection to big data — either analyzing and/or storing large volumes of data — have announced at least $56 million in new funding. Read more »
Working with Schrödinger, which specializes in computational drug design, Cycle Computing built a 50k-core AWS cluster that screened 21 million compounds in less than three hours. The cluster enabled the company to use a much more accurate screening process than other technology. Read more »
By pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into big data research and development, the Obama administration thinks it can push the current state of the art well beyond what’s possible today, and into entirely new research areas. It’s a noble goal, but also a necessary one. Read more »
Looks like Oracle has some competition when it comes to selling big iron for big data. On Wednesday, Cray, the Seattle-based company best known for building some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, announced it’s getting into the big data game. Read more »
It’s easier than ever to build a web or mobile app and call yourself a startup. But with new funding opportunities and technology tools, entrepreneurs can easily — and cheaply — use technology to solve larger problems, rather than create another lifestyle app. Read more »
We often ascribe life-changing powers to high-speed Internet connections in our personal lives, but can they cure cancer? The Chan Soon-Shiong Institute for Advanced Health thinks so, and it’s investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a nationally distributed computing system to make it happen. Read more »
SGI and Cloudera have entered into a reseller agreement, but the most interesting part of the deal is that it’s yet another example of a vendor pushing Hadoop products at mainstream customers while keeping the custom stuff targeted at HPC. Read more »
Getting to next generation systems in high performance computing has inspired technologies that we now use everyday in data centers, but as the drive for exascale computing continues, it seems ingenuity is coming to an end. But is power consumption the real hurdle for bigger systems? Read more »
The face of high-performance computing is changing. That means new technologies and new names, but also familiar names in new places. Anyone that doesn’t have a cloud computing story to tell, possibly a big data one too, might starting looking really old really quickly. Read more »
Appistry, a St. Louis–based software company, has closed a $12 million Series D round for its family of distributed computing products. The company also appears to have changed its corporate messaging — from that of a cloud-computing vendor to that of a big-data vendor. Read more »
Big processors or little processors, scale-up or scale-out, on-premise or in the cloud: the answers might not be as easy as one would think. Web-style, scale-out architectures, low-power server processors and cloud computing are getting more attention by the day, but they have their limits. Read more »
There are big cloud server instances, and then there are big cloud server instances. Storm On Demand’s new 96GB, 32-core instance is of the latter variety. In fact, it’s the biggest you’re likely to find anywhere, and it’s designed with maximum I/O performance in mind. Read more »
LexisNexis is releasing a set of open-source, data-processing tools it says outperforms Hadoop and even handles workloads that Hadoop presently cannot. There have been calls for a legitimate alternative to Hadoop, and this certainly looks like one. Read more »
Two of Amazon Web Services’ most-unique features have finally crossed paths with news this morning that Spot Instances are now available for Cluster Compute Instances. Spot Instances have always been ideal for ad hoc batch-processing jobs, which often run atop on-premise grids or clusters. Read more »
High-performance computing leader Platform Computing hopes to capitalize on the big data movement by spreading its wings beyond its flagship business of managing clusters and grids and into managing MapReduce environments, too. Platform has a solid foundation among leading businesses, especially in the financial services industry. Read more »
Microsoft is developing a new big data tool called Dryad. Dryad and the associated programming model, DryadLINQ, simplify the process of running data-intensive applications across hundreds, or even thousands, of machines running Windows HPC Server. Dryad builds upon lessons learned from Hadoop, but differs in some significant ways. Read more »
After hemorrhaging cash for the better part of a decade and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice in three years, it looks like storied server and supercomputer maker SGI might actually turn a profit again. It’s plan involves everything from diversification to, unfortunately, cutting personnel costs. Read more »
Among the most interesting cloud discussions around the web today were those about what we learned about cloud computing in 2010, how Net Neutrality will affect the delivery of cloud services and what cloud providers presently offer the most-complete portfolios. Read more »
The cloud provides on-demand resources likes of which their target users have never had access to before without buying their own clusters. GPUs already seem to be everywhere. For this reason alone, it seems likely that HPC architectures of the future will be a lot more ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The cloud provides resources that organizations requiring HPC have never had access to before without buying their own clusters. GPUs are everywhere and proving adept at boosting performance. It seems likely that future HPC architectures will be a lot more virtual and a lot less CPU-centric. Read more »
Amazon Web Services upped its HPC portfolio by offering servers that will run GPUs. The move comes on the heels of AWS releasing its Cluster Compute Instances, and validates the idea that specialized hardware may be better suited for certain types of computing in the cloud. Read more »
For many workloads, the cloud appears to be replacing the grid. Space agencies in particular are using the cloud to do work that likely would have had the word “grid” written all over it just a few short years ago. Read more »
The real-time web has never been hotter, with Bing and Google presenting Twitter and Facebook updates in real time, and Google upping the ante with news headlines and MySpace updates, as well. This type of data is just the tip of the real-time iceberg, though, and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
