Gold Sponsors - AMD

Summary:

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home, and play. Quad-Core AMD Opteron-- processors offer uncompromised design and deliver unprecedented performance-per-watt capabilities, providing the scalability needed to drive demanding and data-intensive applications.

AMD on Cloud Computing:
The Global Language Monitor posted an interesting article earlier this year that listed the 10 most confusing yet frequently cited high tech buzzwords of 2008. Not surprising "Cloud Computing" is number one. So, what exactly does it mean to be one of the top tech buzz words? It indicates a technology that actually has the potential of making a real impact on the market.
So what exactly is Cloud Computing? It is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users have anytime access to data, applications, and services without having to know the location of or have direct control over the technology infrastructure of the cloud that supports them. Researchers at the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimate that some 69% of online Americans use Web mail services, store data online, or use software programs whose functionality is located on the Web.
AMD is a major supplier of technology for cloud environments delivering the performance needed to run professional and personal computing services. Cloud Computing providers typically run large data centers, with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ‘servers’. These centers require efficient virtualization, encryption features for security, performance monitoring mechanisms, resource management techniques, and, most importantly, cost and power efficient hardware that minimizes the cost of provisioning, operating, and managing the data center.
An interesting example of “emerging” cloud technology for personal use is the Fusion Render Cloud AMD unveiled at CES in January. AMD's CEO Dirk Meyer and OTOY Chief Exec, Jules Urbach, showcased the project which is designed to revolutionize the deployment, development and delivery of HD content through this massively-parallel supercomputer.
The system is designed to enable content providers to deliver video games, PC applications and other graphically-intensive applications through the Internet “cloud” to virtually any type of mobile device with a web browser without making the device rapidly deplete battery life or struggle to process the content. The AMD Fusion Render Cloud will transform movie and gaming experiences through server-side rendering – which stores visually rich content in a compute cloud, compresses it, and streams it in real-time over a wireless or broadband connection to a variety of devices such as smart phones, set-top boxes and ultra-thin notebooks. By delivering remotely rendered content to devices that are unable to store and process HD content due to such constraints as device size, battery capacity, and processing power, HD cloud computing represents the capability to bring HD entertainment to mobile users virtually anywhere.
The cluster is designed to break the one petaFLOPs barrier and process a million compute threads across over 1,000 graphics processors, making it one of the fastest graphics supercomputers in the world. This really showcases AMD’s ability to harness multiple CPUs and GPUs to provide some very cutting edge platforms.
AMD also has a long track record in the supercomputing world. As of November 2008, AMD Opteron™ processors powered seven of the top 10 fastest machines in the world, including the fastest two computers as represented on the TOP500 list.

Cloud Computing Environments provide an opportunity for companies to increase capacity and capabilities without significantly increasing investments in software, personnel or infrastructure. AMD is providing its Quad Core AMD Opteron™ processor for Windows® Azure™ Compute Service, a highly optimized cloud services platform. The AMD Opteron processor features second level address translation (or Rapid Virtualization Indexing) which enables Microsoft to meet its design goals: efficient low-overhead virtual machine while meeting data center power requirements. The Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor with AMD Virtualization™ (AMD-V™) technology and Direct Connect Architecture is driving many cloud computing environments today because of its ability to deliver significant performance-per-watt efficiencies, successfully handle heavy peak workloads without sacrificing performance, enable massive cloud scaling and offer a reliable foundation that helps global, web-based cloud computing clusters better manage the demands of a 24/7 uptime for enterprises large and small.

Cloud computing is poised to change the ways users interact with each other, use applications, communicate, and compute. And as much attention as cloud computing is currently getting in the enterprise IT space, it already is making serious inroads in the consumer market. AMD is driving the maturation of cloud computing with the CPU and GPU technologies that provide the underlying functionality for the growing world of Cloud Computing clusters.

This conference sessions: http://cloudslam09.com/content/margaret-lewis-silver-lining-getting-core...