IBMBEinnovative

OpenPOWER & Power Systems
OpenPOWER as it relates to Power Systems
Guy Clapperton
What companies are porting their software to Power8 at the moment?
Moya
There are so many like SAP who ported SAP HANA http://www-03.ibm.co...
Roland Whitehead
We (@quru) have been porting solutions to Power8. We've also been helping @MariaDB by repeating their seriously exciting bencharks for DB use on Power: 1,000,000 read/writes in a second.
Moya
Another is the Graph Database #Neo4J http://neo4j.com/new... announced in the past couple of weeks
Simon Armiger
And MongoDB Enterprise...
Moya
Its been very popular with many Open Source vendors such as #Chef #MariaDB.
Roland Whitehead
A key thing is understanding thread management - some software isn't very thread happy so you have to think carefully about how you optimise and how you use all those cores.
Moya
In addition many commercial software vendors have also adopted Linux on POWER such as #Informatica
Moya
The 8 threads percore make the POWER8 processor like a super highway able to process more and bring awesome visualization at the thread level
Moya
@GuyClapperton if you want to read more about the threads check out my blog http://asmarterplane...
Simon Armiger
There are loads of testimonials from ISVs who have found the benefit of running their apps on #Power8 http://bit.ly/1QgRvu...
russell
What workloads is #OpenPower being used for?
Guy Clapperton
Welcome, Russell. The others will answer in a second.
David Spurway
Hello Russell! There are a range. Let me get you some links...
David Spurway
So, here is one from Financial Services: http://www.hpcwire.c... That is showing how much faster #POWER8 is, with OpenPower, for the STAC benchmark.
David Spurway
A completely different workload is Genomics, which you can see more about here: http://openpowerfoun...
David Spurway
Further, there is the work the STFC are doing with Big Data http://www.enterpris...
David Spurway
So, lots! Anything where speed to answers can return business benefits! Does that answer your question?
russell
Anything in regards to the retail industry?
Simon Armiger
As well as the Big Data solutions @D_spurway mentioned, it's also very good at running more consumer focused apps, like Magento's ecommerce based on the LAMP stack
Guy Clapperton
Useful stuff - thanks Simon.
David Spurway
Sure, so, the IBM Institute of Business Value has a couple of papers about Retail, one of which is here: http://www-935.ibm.c...
David Spurway
Those don't directly discuss the technologies delivered by OpenPOWER, but they do call for enhanced Analytics, to target customers more accurately. If you can know your customers better, and target them at the right time, business benefit.
Simon Armiger
You can see some TurboLAMP and Magento results in this post from a colleague in the US: http://ibm.co/1O5s1w...
David Spurway
The technologies in OpenPOWER, and the collaboration with the best of the business that occurs, will create new ways to target customers.
Guy Clapperton
@simonarmiger Thanks for the solid example, Simon - @russell I hope you're seeing that?
Simon Armiger
We're seeing a lot of interest from the new database guys in town, the NoSQLs, like MongoDB, Neo4J, Cassandra - all these run exceptionally well on Power8, and can make great use of a unique CPU to peripheral interface called CAPI
russell
@simonarmiger sure am.. Great info guys
David Spurway
Excellent! Very glad to have supplied useful info so far, but feel free to keep asking us more, after this event as you like!
Guy Clapperton
How does POWER8 and OpenPOWER assist discoveries in medical research?
Mandie Quartly
this is exactly what the recently charted Personalised Medicine workgroup will be focused on: http://openpowerfoun...
Roland Whitehead
"Big data" is helping medical research - so surely if big data analysis is better on Power then Power is going to help medical research.
Mandie Quartly
Also related to this area is the work happening in Genome Folding with POWER8, lots going on! http://openpowerfoun...
Guy Clapperton
Thanks for the link Mandie.
Moya
Absolutly and as we move the the Cognative era of computing - Linux on POWER clouds and data centers are 'powering' those workloads http://www-03.ibm.co...
Lukasz Schodowski
What industry on the market is covered the most in #OpenPower group currently and where it all goes?
Guy Clapperton
Could you clarify what you mean by "where it all goes" please, Lukasz?
Lukasz Schodowski
What areas are the most interesting and exiting for the members of #OpenPOWER? What are the prediction for the future of the innovations?
Mandie Quartly
we've got members from a wide range of industries with a wide range of industry specific technical problems to solve. There are a number of workgroups focusing on different areas... http://openpowerfoun... (contd)
Mandie Quartly
... Workgroups focus on parts of the stack such as accelerators, memory but we've also had industry specific groups chartered recently such as Personalised Medicine. And more coming soon...
Moya
Hi. I'm Moya a solution architect working with POWER8. I also run the POWER8 and OpenPOWER london meetup group :)
Guy Clapperton
Welcome aboard Moya! Tell us about the London group, how many people attend?
Moya
The group is 6 weeks old and growing. We have our next meet up on the 9the December!
Moya
here is the link to the group http://meetu.ps/2PlM...
Guy Clapperton
Thanks - is it open to anyone?
Robin Porter
Take a look at @quru recent POWER8 unboxing video

https://www.youtube....
S822L unboxing by Quru
Quru unboxes the new POWER8 server, ready for Linux workload testing and benchmarking.
Guy Clapperton
How has OpenPOWER and Power Systems changed the future of IT?
David Spurway
I would answer this through a comparison of the openness that defines the OpenPOWER Foundation, and the closed approach taken by our competitors. Customers want openness, and are seeing the benefits of that.
Guy Clapperton
There's been a lot of talk about "open" before but it seems more real than previously...
David Spurway
Our focus with #POWER8, which is the core techology of OpenPOWER is the performance at the thread and core level, delivering speed to business answers, and lowering costs.
Moya
- there are many changes it brings - one is that bringing choice to the Linux Cloud and Data centers, it adds competition and it pushes the boundaries so we can deliver workloads more efficently
Roland Whitehead
Are there any plans for a Power based SBC? I've seen images of them but they seem to have been built for specific requirements rather than being readily available?
Guy Clapperton
Thick journalist alert here - what's an SBC?
Roland Whitehead
"Single Board Computer" rather like a grown up Raspberry Pi
Guy Clapperton
Thanks. I'll leave the others to answer/
Mandie Quartly
you might be interested in this which I saw at the IBM Zurich Research lab this week, actually PowerPC based -> https://t.co/cWVMlQJ...
Roland Whitehead
That's the one I saw. I'd really like to get my hands on something like that... I guess I have to go work for the SKA ;)
Mandie Quartly
we've had a lot of interest from the demo at SC15 by @ronaldgadget. It is still in the research environment but very promising for very dense high performance analytics workloads.
Mandie Quartly
p.s. I would like to get hold of some too :)
Roland Whitehead
I note that @rackspace and @google have been building their own Power based servers - http://www.nextplatf... - will we see more of this or is it going to be "the big boys" only?
Mandie Quartly
I certainly think we'll see more of this. And more OpenPOWER partners manufacturing servers which will be sold by partners and potentially added to IBM's LC Systems line. http://www-03.ibm.co...