Intel Academic Community Advisory Council
February 3, 22:00 PDT and February 4, 08:00 PDT, 2010
Attendees:
Robert Chun, San Jose State University. USA
Selwyn You, Intel China
Wei Xue, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Matt Wolf, Georgia Tech, USA
Walter Tichy, U. of Karlsruhe, Germany
Robert Mullins, University of Cambridge, UK
Sanjeev K Aggarwal [disruptive bridge issues prevented easy connection], IIT Kanpur, India
Stephen Blair-Chappell, Intel UK
Bev Bachmayer, Intel Vienna, Germany
Jeff Gallagher, Chair, Intel, Santa Clara, USA
Agenda:
- Meeting Calendar, Face to Face update (15 minutes)
- Moodle Content Review (20 minutes)
- Academic Cluster MTL update and survey (40 minutes)
- Feedback to Intel (20 minutes)
[Chair note 20100217: at the time these meetings were held the term cloud was used to discuss what is now the Manycore Testing Lab, or, MTL for short. In all cases, the word cloud in these minutes is replaced with MTL, and the intended meaning of all speakers is the same.]
Detailed Minutes
- Meeting Calendar, Face to Face update BEV
Bev: were planning the phone meetings for the rest of the year now; please look for that in your email soon.
Face to Face meeting, Still working on the plan. BUT, we are still hoping for a face to face meeting either at the Asia Academic Forum, or the European Academic Forum, late October or early November. Please give feedback to Bev by email.
Selwyn: simultaneously we have the kickoff meeting with Jozelle. IDF in April in Beijing, also Intel Academic Forum in August.
Wei: SuperComputing 2010 is a possibility, since he plans to attend, OCT in New Orleans.
General comment: Faculty suggested not a complete F2F but mini F2F meetings; Germany, bring in someone from US.
General comment: www.supercome.de May June Hamburg?
2. Moodle Content Review
Wei: just forgot! Very sorry! In China, this is a time between two terms. Selwyn: suggested to pick one for next meeting, then a second if time.
Robert Chun: research angle?
Stephen: will do, and some structure ideas
Should there be a Reviewed column in the Moodle table ?
[AR to Chair: arrange change in Moodle template work with Paul S.]
Matt: need to have focused areas for the students to look at, need to sort out the Moodle by topic and focus on specific topics.
List question too long
Review list too long. Need better criteria for reviewing, overwhelmed and lost
Need help curating the data, needs better organization, and needs to be more focused.
[Chair note: The question regarding reviews of individual classes by the Council was often transformed into a question about design of Intel Moodle itself. ]
3. Academic Remote Access MTL update and survey
Selwyn: Demo at SIGSE, would like to do the same thing at April in Beijing, invite Dr. Xue to give demonstration. April 13 and 14, afternoon of the 13th.
Feedback to Intel
General comments: Give a summary of the architecture. What is available date?
Review of proposed questions for survey, questions listed first in boldby number/slide:
Question 1: What use for the MTL would be of primary interest to you?
A. Benchmarking the code currently in use in my classrooms
B. Creating new code for use in my classrooms
C. Examining the scalability of the code currently in use in my classrooms
D. My own research, or the research of my Teaching Assistants
E. The research of my students during class labs or homework labs
F. Validating the homework assignments of my students
G. OTHER (please list) _______________________________________
Robert: Id use the MTL to show my students the advantage of parallel systems over serials. During the classroom even, students validating their homework, doing their homework on the system.
Dr. Xue: Yes! Same usage. Teach my students during class. Very worried about latency from here! So slow it may be unusable. Selwyn: this is why we need much testing, requirements for testing.
Stephen: the question looks great to me. What about those who want Moblin or Atom? Pursue in phase 2. Worth pursuing? Visual experience doesnt make sense, but a different strategy might be in order, other strands.
General comment: Difficult deciding which is most important.
Question 2: What secondary uses for the MTL might be of interest to you?
A. Benchmarking the code currently in use in my classrooms
B. Creating new code for use in my classrooms
C. Examining the scalability of the code currently in use in my classrooms
D. My own research, or the research of my Teaching Assistants
E. The research of my students during class labs or homework labs
F. Validating the homework assignments of my students
G. OTHER (please list) _______________________________________
Matt: Not sure what the distinction is between scalability and benchmarking: not getting what youre trying to probe.
Group suggestion: combine questions 1 and 2, number preferences, 1 is primary use, 2 would be secondary use, etc. Selecting all that apply.
[Chair note: questions 1 and 2 merged into one question before distribution.]
Question 3: Which operating system in the MTL would be of most use to you? If you require more than one, please list in order of importance. (For example, Linux, UNIX, Windows 2008, Windows 7, etc.)
Wei: Windows operating system for my classes, but, local use. Linux would be ok. Server edition.
Robert: Windows 7 needed, kind of hoping the MTL is accessible via a normal web browser. Logging in would be ok, but, more difficult for the students, more steps to go through. Ordinary Web browser would be better. Im not quite sure why you need to know this. Ideally, web interface gets you into the MTL. Generic web browser would be a great way to go.
Remote desktop connection. Virtual desk connection. OS. Selwyn agrees.
Stephen: Is it important that a specific operating system is used? If yes, then list them. Some might not care which is used.
General comment: Hardware is always virtualized, it is presumed. Virtualised? Do users need bare hardware?
Question 4: Considering your primary use of the MTL, what training do you think would be required in order to gain fullest possible use of your time? (For example, training on the cluster itself; on CPU architecture; on concurrency or benchmark tools; etc.)
Robert: fair question. All of the above. Training on the cluster itself, in particular for the faculty who intend to use it. Administrative logistics. How do student accounts get created. Tools training.
Wei: Give examples on how to use the MTL. Selwyn: each year there is a scheduled faculty workshop on Multicore; if latency is ok, we could use it for that. Selwyn: step by step lab documents would be adequate for MTL use.
PGI: Portland Group International.
Wei: Linux openview debugger;
General comment: Ct, any support?
Question 5: Considering your primary interest in using the MTL, what software or utilities would you need (or expect) to be installed for you? Please select all that apply, and freely add any software that you feel is missing.
A. Compilers (Intel, MS, gnu, other___________________________)
B. Profilers (Intel, others ___________________________________)
C. Performance libraries (Intel, others_________________________)
D. Debuggers (please indicate_______________________________ )
E. Threading Tools (Intel, others_____________________________)
F. Other tools or utilities (please list)
Selwyn what about Java? Maybe spell that out. Add Java to survey. [Chair note: added before distribution]
General comments: Need more definition on tools programming environment on the user machine, need plug ins and IDE and remote management interface.
General comment: Bandwidth, what IDE can we run over the internet?
General comment: How do you want to use the MTL local machine as programming and MTL as the execution engine. Batch more is an easy way to bootstrap over that.
General comment: List needs to much bigger, Needs an IDE category;
More practical for folks to setup their own work environment and then use MTL as remote executable environment. Decide how to use the MTL: Expect to use local machine, or remote machine to do everything.
Slide 11. Question 6: Are there any applications that you feel are must haves, that must be installed, for you to gain the most value out of using the MTL? Please list.
Robert: fair question, nothing in particular: basic compilers, debuggers, all that I need already listed
Wei: no special applications; Selwyn: nothing to add, no specific application. Another suggestion though. Do we get Administrative privilege to faculty? Restore afterwards. Dedicated schedule matters!
Stephen: good questions
General comment: Would NOT like to reserve time slots.
Slide 12. Question 7: Considering your primary interest in using the MTL, what sort of schedule for availability would work best for you? (For example, daily for several hours in the morning, afternoon, or evening; for an entire week once a month; classroom hours whatever they might be; normal business hours; etc.)
Wei: Week at a time for tuning needs.
Robert: basically, interactive 24x7, dont want reservations, dont forsee my students doing anything computationally intensive.
Slide 13, Question 8: What calendar dates are the earliest that you would be able to access the MTL, given the opportunity?
Wei: As soon as possible!
Stephen: as early as possible. Im going to different universities training academics, I wonder if it could be used for teaching.
Robert: just starting our semester at San Jose stage, next months rollout, get something going before May.
General comment: If you said I could have it tomorrow, I would not say no.
Slide 14. Question 9: Lead time is the time between your request to use the MTL and the actual time on the schedule that is assigned to you. What kind of lead time would be necessary in order for the MTL to work well in your academic environment?
Robert: fair question. 1 to 2 weeks is ok, month delay is difficult.
Wei: 2 weeks maximum.
Stephen: wanting to plan a semesters work, and on certain occasion well use the MTL. The ability to plan a semester is useful. Not just lead time, but repeat orders. I want the following sessions x y z. Helps with the delivery of contents.
Slide 15: Question 10: Would you be interested in allowing Intel to reference the results of your work in the MTL, on a case by case basis? Alternatively, would you be willing to blog about it for the benefit of the Academic Community?
Robert: yes and yes. Not objectionable.
Wei: I would like to share interesting results with the community. I would like to share Sharing our experience using the new architecture. Selwyn: Good question, pretty good. We can learn from the collaborative research. Publish the paper is of primary interest, academic point of view.
Stephen: fine to ask that question.
General question: What hardware will be available on the MTL in the future?
General comments: Missing although ask about intent, dont see area about what do you want to do in the near term. Painting scenarios' that they are working on, What want in future in terms as hardware?
Early access to SW development Ct TBB.
4. Opens:
Wei: Intel can connect with different professors in different universities in China, we are building. If possible, Intel can help us connect with other professors around the world. Interesting results should be shared, other parallel adventures. This is my suggestion.
Robert: Generally everything is going well so far. A compliment so far. So much material is available from the Moodle and other web sites, where do I find materials? Or Software Developer Network? Or the Academic Community? I think there is duplication too. All boils down to structure, literally too much information. A search on the Moodle is: elimination dupes, thinned down, intelligent result of the search. STRUCTURE!
Selwyn: Robert just made a great point about common faculty confusion. Academic community and Moodle, what about the portal. Discuss at staff please.
Stephen: Atom developers program, specific tool suite for that, means for people writing their own apps, for ISVs and such, not the same as using the MTL. MIGHT be of interest to some Universities. NOT just many cores, but also, the low end solutions.
Do work on Low power and HPC.