DOME: The Ultimate Big Data Challenge

Until a few years ago, the design of computer systems was relatively simple: there was a high speed CPU plus memory and the majority of the optimization was inside the CPU chip. As scaling has basically stopped and today, for designing computer systems, a wealth of parameters and boundary conditions need to be observed: power envelope, performance, hardware cost, workload, CPU, memory size, accelerator technology, boards, cooling, system etc. This has propelled the complexity of the design far beyond what a reasonable team of people can keep “in their head” and reason about. We will need a methodology, based on mathematical ground principles to addresses the fundamental equations which govern the system and use mathematical optimization to give a couple of directions system design should address. Such a methodology will allow to reason on system optimization and system parameter space.  Of course such a methodology  is also of key interest to the design of any electrical system in the future. Also "normal" ASIC's reach  complexities (in gate- or transistor counts) that  mathematical ground principles will increasingly be needed to address the system design early on.

About the panel member:

Ton Engbersen has been with the IBM Research Laboratory since 1980. His career spanned such diverse areas as Image processing, chip design, communications technology, server technology, legacy management, Innovation in Outsourcing and Data center Energy management. Throughout the years he has held a range of management positions in Research and Development in Switzerland and in the US. As member of the IBM Academy of Technology he led the European branch from 2009-2011. Dr. Engbersen holds over 20 patents, has published more then 50 articles in refereed scientific journals and has given over 200 presentations on various subjects concerning his professional work.

Currently he is the Scientific Director for the ASTRON-IBM Center of Exascale Technology, and leading the DOME Project. Ton holds an EE Master from Eindhoven University, Netherlands and a PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland.