Free and open source software key for multicore hardware

Press Release,

New Zealand, February 3, 2014.

Free and open source software key to taking advantage of multicore hardware

Free and open source software will almost undoubtedly be the way to manage hugely powerful multicore computers says Nicolas Erdody.

The organiser of Multicore World 2014 Conference at Auckland’s AUT on 25 and 26 February, says computer engineers are beginning to get to grips with writing programs to effectively handle many cores on one chip (multicore), which dramatically increases computing processing power.

“But there’s many different approaches to how to provide these instructions, and we’ve assembled a world-class range of speakers to outline these software advances, which so far haven’t matched the massive hardware increases by computer-chip manufacturers,” says Erdody.

“For IT managers, CTOs & CIOs, computer engineers and developers and anyone with even a hint of interest in where computing is heading, this conference will be invaluable.”

Among the speakers is Associate Professor Manuel Chakravarty of the University of New South Wales who will illustrate how the ‘Accelerate’ open source framework delivers a competitive multicore performance with a fraction of the effort of alternatives.

The Lead Data Technologist at Germany’s codecentric AG, Pavlo Baron, will explain why their approach is to use Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as a way to deal with multiple millions of events per second in a multicore environment.

New Zealand’s Catalyst IT, who are also one of the conference’s sponsors, will have its Cloud Engineer Ricardo Rocha describe some of the significant shifts that have occurred in data storage systems, where new interfaces aim to relax, and speed up, some of the traditional access protocols.

“IT and other company professionals should attend this conference, because multicore inspired changes to the computing world are happening now,” says Erdody, who is also founder and managing director of Open Parallel.

“They will find real knowledge on how to build and work multicore platforms and applications. This will provide big savings on licences, maintenance and upgrades, boosting their company’s computing performance.”

There will be two workshops collocated with Multicore World that also showcase the use of open source software: “Computing for SKA” -co-organised with AUT university, and “Introduction to Erlang” -co-organised with the New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS). Both NZOSS and AUT sponsor Multicore World.

Erdody says the speakers, as well as the informal conversations will be part of a wider initiative that can see New Zealand become a specialised niche player and hub of entrepreneurship based on multicore and parallel computing.

“There’s an opportunity to ride a multicore wave; people should get there,” he says.

ENDS

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