If you are going to the event next week in Berlin then let me know about it. Maybe we can meet face to face and if there are enough of us perhaps even a gourp community meeting. This can be a good opportunity to meet the experts.

In any case, you are all welcome to join my session titled "Parallel Programming for Embedded". I will be presenting on Friday 10:45 - 12:00.

At the basis of this presentation is the fact that the hardware has always been parallel. This also caused the kernel drivers to live in a parallel environment, so even though embedded devices were late to adopt Multi-Core CPUs, the people who are working with the lower levels have always been working in parallel environments.

The session speaks of parallel systems in general side by side with embedded systems and infrastructure environemnts.

The goal of this session is to open the eyes and show the systems that have always been working in parallel and name the principles used with these systems.

You can read my previous blogs to learn more about this approach. For example these:

is dos the ideal parallel environment part iv

stateful programming a case study

Here are a few slides from this presentation.

Parallel Programming for Embedded TechEd 2009

USB Ping Pong

Hope to see you all there,
Asaf

The first was the Intel Academic Community panel discussion "What Parallel Computing R&D Brings to University Education." The panelists were Tom Murphy (Contra Costa College), Matt Wolf (Georgia Tech), Michael Wrinn (Intel Innovative Software Education), and John Gustafson (Intel Labs). The first two panelists had views from two separate ends of the education spectrum, Wrinn supports the Intel Academic Community to put parallelism in curriculums of all levels of colleges and universities, and Gustafson has worked in industry and at the National Labs. While it wasn't quite on topic, Gustafson had a clear vision and list of the current state of Computer Science education and what needed to be changed for the future survival of the discipline. The only point I can recall off the top of my head was the elimination of the use of PRAM to teach parallel algorithms (something I'd mentioned in The Art of Concurrency).

One thing that all panelists seemed to agree might be a good idea was a separate degree program that gave students more practical experience and knowledge. Something like a "Computational Science" degree that would emphasize programming skills more than proving a grammar is LR(1). In support of this idea, one of the panelists noted that IAC panel at the 2008 IDF had an executive from a well-known technology company state that he does not even look at resumes from CS graduates and prefers EE grads for the work he needs. Having a more practical degree option might entice students back into the field and give them more opportunities in today's market, especially if they have practical parallel programming experience.

My second highlight was the Intel Black Belt Software Developer Meet Up on Wednesday evening. It was my first chance to meet the other Black Belt developers from within Intel and from around the world. (I also got my secret decoder ring.) A new category for academic Black Belts was announced and the first two recipients, Tom Murphy and Matt Wolf, were in attendance. James Reinderswas also awarded a Black Belt for his contributions to software development.

Besides a delicious meal, the developers were given an in-depth preview of the newly announced Intel Application Developer site. I could see the wheels spinning in more than one developer's brain about how to take advantage of this new opportunity to put forth their ideas and software to a whole new community of users.

While not actually part of the conference, one other highlight for me during the week was watching the Chicago Cubs play the San Francisco Giants with Aaron Tersteeg and Jim Dempsey (a fellow Black Belt). Even better was seeing the Cubs come through to score the go ahead and winning runs against in the ninth inning (with 2 outs). A nice end to my days at IDF 2009.

We have talked about this IT game in previous posts (here and here), but much of the renewed interest on the game comes from its newest feature: Crisis!
"...the management suddenly slashes your department’s budget. Your mission is to make the business case for upgrades..."
Nothing like a game that accompanies and simulates reality :)

you play the IT manager of a small company with global ambitions. Part of your job is ensuring that everybody’s desktop PCs, laptops and servers keep running smoothly, and the skills your characters acquire during gameplay include knowledge on virtualization, manageability and security. In case you didn't sign for the game yet, go to IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces and start having fun while you learn.

Here is the game trailer:
IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces on Intel's YouTube channel

Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s Software and Services Group, will discuss  developing for the continuum of Intel platforms.  Renee will be joined on stage by some key industry partners and will provide updates on Intel developer programs and software for Intel platforms.

If you want to be one of the first to get the inside scoop on the news in Renee's keynote, visit newlegendswanted.com.

This is my first blog as Manageability Developer Community Manager for the Intel® Software Network. My team has been most welcoming and I am learning a lot. Many thanks to our previous community manager Ajay Mungara for the valuable information he has given me on Intel® Active Management Technology. The more I learn about this the more impressed I am – so many possibilities for the IT professional!

While working for Intel the past 16 years I have been repeatedly amazed with its advances. I have had the good fortune to work with many software engineers on latest and greatest technology such as .Net, Multi Core, innovations within Intel’s factory automation environment and now Intel® Active Management Technology. During my tenure I have worked as a technical writer/communicator for Intel’s Fab 11 Automation and IT Flex Services groups and as a communications manager for Flex and Intel’s Numonyx company startup. While working for Flex I assisted many with the startup and management of their online communities of practice after successfully creating and managing the Intel Writer's Guild COP. I also like inventing things and one of the many ideas I have developed with two Intel colleagues was submitted by Intel for a U.S. patent. Two new ideas are currently in the works.

My passions are people, networking and innovation. This job combines all three – how cool is that? To be able to share Intel’s great products with actual users and then to watch and listen as they get their hands on them is pretty exciting. I believe that my job is to learn what the community needs and wants, present the most up-to-date information that I can find and help join together the folks who create and use it. To do this I will be learning as much as I can, gathering as much data as seems logical, absorbing the ideas and opinions of our members and presenting what is most helpful for you.

I believe that the best way to manage (and I use that word loosely) a community is to foster a continual dialogue among its members. In other words, I want not just feedback but active participation – as much or as little as you want. I’m always open to new ideas (I thrive on them) – so if there is something you’d like to add or to change please let me know. I am relying on you and my virtual door is always open so feel free to drop in…

Kathy

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

                                                                                  -- King Henry V (Henry V)

It's time once again to sharpen your wits and test your mettle against the 2009 Intel Threading Challenge contest. Phase 2 has begun today (24 AUG 09) with the first of six problems being posted.

The initial programming assignment is to thread the Strassen Algorithm for matrix-matrix multiplication. If you're not familiar with Strassen's Algorithm, you can check out the Wikipedia page or look for other online descriptions. I've also cerated a serial source code to be used as a template for the solutions. You can find a copy in a zip archive attached to the first post in this problem's forum at http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/strassens-algorithm/topic/67860/.

As with Phase 1, there will be a new problem posted every 2 weeks with 19 days to submit a solution. That means there will be about a week of overlap time for two consecutive problems. The last problem will be due on Friday, November 20, 2009. Points are awarded for each problem and a grand prize for this phase will be awarded to the contestant with the highest total of points on 3 of the 6 problems. See the official rules for more details on how to enter, how points are awarded, and what is required in your entries, plus all the other legal mumbo-jumbo required.

Forums for each individual contest problem will be available for questions about the problem statement or clarify something that might have been left out or might be misunderstood. The judges will strive to run a fair contest and will do their best to keep up with the forums to be sure everyone has the same information about the contest problem statements and the expectations of solutions to be submitted.

Future problems in this phase will deal with graphs, chess pieces, vacations, baseball, and colors. Good luck to everyone that enters. I'm hope you'll learn a thing or two and have fun.

(The title and quote above are from Shakespeare's Henry V. When it feels like it is the judges against the world while running a contest like this, I remember the "Breach Speech" from this play. I've seen none more inspirational than the version by Kenneth Branagh. Perhaps this speech will work you, noble yeoman, into a coding fervor in order to attempt to take the grand prize.)

Come and join many Intel parallelization experts at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) September 22-24, 2009 in San Francisco, including folks from the RapidMind and Ct technology team. Hear more about our plans to work with Ct technology and RapidMind. There will be a class by Intel’s Anwar Ghuloum and Amanda Sharp at IDF on Ct, which will soon to be available in beta for you to try out yourself. Ct folks, including me, will also be at Supercomputing 2009, where we will be hosting a Ct related BoF. If you’d like to be involved, please contact me here. Hopefully we’ll see you at these exciting events – your thoughts and feedback on our technology is always welcome!

Main features in the 5.1.1 SDK:

• Secure Audit Log (also known as "Access Monitor") - Configuration and samples (4.0 & 5.0).
• Client Initiated Remote access (CIRA) - Manageability Presence Server (MPS) sample provided, configuration support & most samples updated to support working remotely (4.0 & 5.0).
• Network Access Protection (NAP) - System Health Validator (SHV) sample (4.0 & 5.0).
• Samples for additional DASH 1.0 profiles - 'Role Based authorization (ACL)', WS-Eventing & DASH Discovery support (3.2 - apart from WS-Eventing, 4.0 & 5.0).
• USB configuration has been updated to support many configuration options.
• Wireless configuration WS-Management support (4.0).
• New event log interface (3.2, 4.0 & 5.0).
• Alarm clock feature (5.1).
• DASH 1.0 support (5.1). This change has caused some backward compatibility issues. Additional information can be found in Intel AMT WS-Management Capabilities Comparison.pdf document, in the DOCS folder.
• IMRSDK.Dll can now work with a Certificate singed by a root CA with a 4096 key & SHA 512 algorithm (5.1).

Notes:

The following Microsoft hot fixes are required to work correctly in some situations:

• KB889388 - Digest DLL crash when connecting to an Intel AMT machine from 2 applications simultaneously.
• KB899900 - For using Kerberos authentication to connect to an Intel AMT device.
• KB908209 - For using Kerberos authentication to connect to an Intel AMT device using Internet Explorer.
• KB842773 - For using digest authentication from a Windows application to connect to an Intel AMT device on which Kerberos users are configured.
  • Note: this is included in Windows XP* SP2 and in Windows Server 2003* SP1.

SOAP APIs: As we all know, WS-MAN is slowly replacing the old SOAP interface and in this version of the SDK, several previously existing SOAP commands are now deprecated. The samples in this SDK release only use new API calls. This means that the samples in this SDK release (or applications developed using them) might not work with machines using Intel AMT releases older than 4.0. SOAP commands supported from Intel AMT 1.0 and deprecated in Intel AMT 2.0 are not supported by Intel AMT 4.0 devices. These functions are supported by the WSDL files for working with previous generations of Intel AMT.

• Exceptions to this are the Discovery sample and the Configuration Server sample, which demonstrate, respectively, how to find Intel AMT machines and how to configure them. Both of these samples will work with Intel AMT machines regardless of their release version.
• For samples demonstrating the usage of older (deprecated) SOAP API, please refer to older releases of the Intel AMT SDK.

Ahem..... This might be a great place to pitch the High Level API package that we have recently placed onto our Manageability Community Web Page. The High Level APIs are built on top of WS-MAN and are intended to remove the complexities of writing AMT software using the regular SDK samples (means you don't have to be a WS-MAN guru to write code for AMT!!.) While this package does not yet support all features, it does support HW Inventory, Storage, Power Control, and soon it will support Redirection. The dlls can be brought into an SDK project so that the developer can choose between implementing a feature using the SDK samples, or the High Level API Samples. Our intern, Stephen Hibbert has implemented features using the HLAPI package - see his blog here and you can also read up on Aharon's blogs about the HLAPI package. We would love to get feedback from you!

Release Details

• Please see the readme and versions files for more information about this release.
• Need more help? Refer to the FAQs or get expert advice from the Developer Discussion Forum

Today I am going to talk about the top 10 videos by number of views that were published in the month of June:

Starting off at #10: I remember in graduate school learning about bottlenecks in a production cycle. If I recall right the factory workers named these bottlenecks “Herbie” – In this video the narrator talks about a new tool that shows the CPU utilization by core in order to best optimize my parallel programming performance.

#9: The Matrix or Intel? Some of my work colleagues have apparently got caught in the Matrix here at Intel – I haven’t seen any adapter outlets in their necks but I have noticed that some of us are quite tired – maybe it is the 104 degree weather here in Oregon. (A couple weeks ago)

#8: Parallel Studio Overview: It looks like from the opening graphs in this video that by 2010 almost all CPU shipping will be Multicore processors. I did see an ad for a laptop with a single core CPU in it while reading this Sunday’s newspaper but that was a really glaring exception.

#7: ISN TV! Every Tuesday our office is turned into a production studio for the Intel Software Network TV – Intel’s interactive TV channel on the web.

At #6 Wreaking Havok: Check out the Havok destruction and cloth demo from the Game Developer Conference. There are actually 10,000 pieces that make up this bridge…. When the bombs on bridge go off these 10,000 pieces break up into about 2,500 pieces and the train on the bridge falls to the floor using Havok physics and gravitational constants.

They are also simulating 16 high independent high-resolution dresses including over 7,000 triangles (clothes moving in reaction to dancing models) in real-time on a Corei7 processor.

#5: Betty this is your lucky day! Where else have you seen an Intel video with a laugh track? “Have you struggled with scaling? Have you been a victim of data races and contention? And what about those pesky for loops?? – Starring: Paul Steinberg as Betty and Dr. Clay Breshears as Himself.”

#4: Steve is a recovering animator – see what he is no up with the new LevelUp 2009 contest. For the first time, this year’s contestants will be judged by a panel consisting of pioneering game developers who helped shape the industry (including Sid Meier, Will Wright and Rick Raymo), plus a team of experts from Intel.

#3: Moblin is Intel’s Open Source Operation System for net books. I don’t yet have a net book but after lugging around a 7 pound laptop these last 9 years I wouldn’t mind lightening my load. I have friends that only take their net book with them when they go on vacation – that way they have their digital content with them without the temptation of checking their work email.

#2: Ok can anyone tell me what a “Dead Lock” is? Actually I looked it up on www.wikipedia.com it states: A deadlock is a situation wherein two or more competing actions are waiting for the other to finish, and thus neither ever does. It is often seen in a paradox like "the chicken or the egg". I really like the example of the illogical statute passed by the the Kansas Legislature “When two trains approach each other at a crossing, both shall come to a full stop and neither shall start up again until the other has gone.

For #1 - Intel's GPA Suite - I learned that an ERG is any piece of GPU work – Draw call, clear, Blip or anything else….

So what are your favorite videos? What kind of video content would you like to see in the future on ISN? Please do tell!

I have a potentially valuable prize to give away here – I will mail this to the winner.

Take a look at this picture and tell me in the Comments section below the following:

1. Who are these people?
2. Where are they (Place, City, Country)
3. What event is this photo concerning?

I will give the answer to this in the next blog post….

Cheers - Russ

Congratulations Dr. Matthew Wolf! Matt has been an active member of the Academic Community for 2 years and has spent valuable time presenting webinars, representing us at events and offering his advice and expertise on areas of opportunity for expanding the inclusion of parallelism in undergraduate curricula.  Matt was also the first recipient of the Intel Leadership in Academia Award and is now one of our first academic community Black Belts. Matt is a valued member of our Academic Advisory board and holds a unique position of leadership within the community. Congratulations Matt!

Congratulations Tom Murphy! Tom Murphy exhibits phenomenal community leadership in the academic community. Tom is a member of the Parallelism Working Group, is co-authoring an upcoming paper to help define new ACM undergraduate CS curriculum recommendations. Tom is also a co-host of the “Teach Parallel!” discussion series and an active blogger. Tom’s outstanding breadth of contributions to the Academic Community—on and off line – include leading Train the Trainer Supercomputing Education Trainings on Parallelism, and speaking on sponsored panels and in video presentations. Congratulations Tom!

Alexey Kukanov is the next Black Belt Intel Employee. A member since early 2007, Alexey has more than 500 forum and blog contributions. Alexey is an active, valued contributor in both Russian and English Intel Software Network communities. Thank you for going above and beyond Alexey! Congratulations!

Amongst other news, we are getting ready for our Annual Black Belt Meet Up at IDF this year. It will give us an opportunity to meet all you Black Belt Software Developers in person, catch up on all that is cool and new at the Intel Developer Forum and also save some time to absorb the fog, the fantastic food and the multi-cultural experience that is San Francisco : )

Join us in San Francisco from September 22 through September 24th as we reset the boundaries of the technologies that are shaping the world within which we live.

Come meet, collaborate, and learn from Intel employees and your peers at IDF 2009 where you'll have access to numerous technical sessions across 27 technical tracks.

Two opportunities to meet with us to talk about our product plans for Ct technology are happening – one this week, one in a little more than a month.

This week at SIGGRAPH in New Orleans, several of us from Intel Software's developer products division (DPD) are at the Intel booth to talk with you and take your feedback as we are working toward the first public beta of our product later this year. More information at http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-software-network-at-siggraph-2009

So, if you will be at SIGGRAPH in New Orleans this week, August 4-6^th, please stop by the Intel booth, and ask for Rita.

You can also meet Anwar Ghuloum our chief architect for the Ct project. Anwar will be on an industry analyst and press panel hosted by Jon Peddie at SIGGRAPH on Wednesday August 5^th. More information is available at http://jonpeddie.com/events/details/siggraph-2009.

Next month – we will be at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco to meet people interested in Ct technology, and to give a few classes. We’ll also unveil more details about our product plans, have demos and provide information on signing up for the beta program (which will begin by the end of the year).

 For more information, see http://software.intel.com/en-us/data-parallel/ and feel free to drop me an e-mail at rita.b.turkowski@intel.com.

http://www.stevemcconnell.com/

At ICSE 2009 he was a keynote speaker and chose this provocative topic: “10 Most Powerful Ideas in Software Engineering.” Was it a full house who listened to him? You bet. If you haven’t heard Steve talk about this particular topic, you should (see above URL). All this said, there were 2 of his 10 ideas that really resonated with me, and I want to spend a little time talking about those now:

Idea #1: Software Development Work is Performed by Human Beings, and,
Idea #9: Different Kinds of Software Call For Different Kinds of Software Development

Let’s go in order.

What are the human factors that might influence the performance of programmers? That’s a good question and according to Cocomo II (the COnstructive COst MOdel for software development, created by Barry Boehm) these factors include, from greatest financial impact to lesser:

Product Complexity, Time Constraints, Storage Constraints, Requirements Analysis Capability, General Programmer Capability, Turnover, Platform Volatility, Database size, Multi-site Development, Required Software Reliability, Documentation needs, Architecture and Risk Resolution

Cocomo II further sites human influences on entire projects has a cumulative effect based on experience, technology knowledge, business knowledge, and ones’ own personal processes. I haven’t studied the math behind these findings but think about those results for a minute:

Cocomo II states human influences make a 22x difference in total project effort AND COST. Experience factors alone make a 3.0x difference; capability factors alone make a 3.5x difference.

Human Beings -- it turns out -- exhibit exactly the same variations in individual performance that programmers do (duh). What does this mean to my teams or yours? Glad you asked:
o Recruiting top staff is easily cost justified
o Elaborate staff retention programs are also easily cost justified
o Technical successes by companies such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are not accidents (!)

Ok so fair enough: Mr. McConnell shows us by means of Cocomo data that it makes a lot of sense to get the right people for the right software job; in fact, it’s one of the 10 most important things you can do. Does this mean that all jobs are created equal, that all software projects can benefit from the use of one, single development approach that is a guaranteed “one size fits all” success?

Some say yes: McConnell says absolutely not. There can never be one single development approach that works BEST for all projects.

The image that he uses to illustrate this point is a striking one, or rather, a sawing one...

McConnell asks, suppose you need a saw to get some work done? What saw will work. He then present a series of 11 saws asking, would this one work for you? This one? What about that one? Those? Of course some are electrical, many are not; at least one is gasoline driven; several very small for fine and delicate work; others, large, designed for the largest tree trunks.
Each is clearly a saw, designed to do the work of a saw, but for VERY different circumstances. He tells us software development is as difficult as sawing, tongue firmly planted acheek: and yet, the point is extremely well made. The wrong saw (approach) in a given situation would result in catastrophic disaster.

Matching the right approach (saw) to the job is paramount: again in fact, one of the 10 most important things you can decide. He invites us to take this conclusion to the bank (a certainty): “Which software development approach works best depends on the kind of project.”

Here is what it looks like - it lets you pick which areas you want to search - I like to search forums and blogs - so this tool was working great for me.

So one morning a couple of months ago, I went to use our search tool on our Manageability Forum and it was GONE! OK, there are other search tools out there, but they have different options and do not give us the same results as our trusty (and favorite) search tool. I found that I could go back to the Blogs page - it's still there! (Shhhhhhh!) But it was kind of a pain to always have to go back to the Blog Page to get access to my search tool. That's when I finally asked Gina B about it. I was told that it had been removed from all the forum pages on the "Right Hand Side" of the page, but I could still access it by clicking on the Binoculars! I was so excited! I went out to our Forum and clicked on the Binoculars and BINGO - there was my search tool!

Thank You Gina B for pointing this out!!