Scale Computing debuts small HCI edge appliance for edge computing, IT infrastructure deployments

Scale Computing released its latest HC3 Edge appliance, which is powered by Intel technology, offers a low-cost edge solution that is built on a tiny form factor, making it ideal to deploy in small clusters where highly available computing was previously cost-prohibitive. The appliance also introduces HC3 Edge Fabric, which eliminates the need for a backplane network switch requirement, lowering the TCO and delivering simpler connectivity for edge networks.

The HE150 appliance is a small, all-flash, NVMe storage-based compute appliance that delivers simplicity, efficiency, and enterprise-ready virtualization associated with Scale Computing’s HC3 platform. 

Built specifically for sites that need highly available infrastructure, the HE150 can be deployed almost anywhere, without requiring a rack or server closet. Taking up only the space needed to stack three smartphones, it also includes disaster recovery, high availability clustering, rolling upgrades and integrated data protection.

The HE150 is based on the Intel NUC, offering excellent performance to handle a wide range of workloads. The cutting-edge construction and connectivity comes ready for industrial and IoT applications. The extremely small form factor consumes a small amount of power, offers ease of installation and an ability to rapidly add devices that scale up rapidly, along with the reliability needed for edge computing and IoT applications.

“The high-functionality, reliability and performance of HE150 represents a major breakthrough that will open up new markets for Scale Computing and its partners, including Infrastructure Technology Solutions,” said Joel Althoff, president at Infrastructure Technology Solutions. “With Scale Computing, HE150 opens up a new door to edge computing, delivering an affordable edge solution equipped with disaster recovery and resiliency, that is truly innovative in the marketplace.”

In addition to the new Scale Computing HE150 appliance, HC3 Edge software, which is available to large multi-site customers and partners, is also introducing general software support for Intel NUC based systems from other hardware suppliers. HC3 Edge software will be available soon for Lenovo’s new Smart Edge portfolio of fan-less, small form factor PCs. 

“With no IT staff on site, downtime is a constant concern at each of our locations. Downtime can cost us tens of thousands of dollars, and therefore is not an option for Jerry’s Foods,” explained Jeff Miller, director of IT at Jerry’s Foods. “I was blown away by the simplicity and functionality of Scale Computing’s edge solutions. It’s making a huge impact on my day-to-day IT operations. With the addition of the HE150, distributed enterprises now have the ability to scale up or down depending on their edge computing needs. It’s a win-win!”

“A growing number of distributed organizations require infrastructure at the edge of the network, specifically at sites where there are limited IT staff available. With edge computing on the rise, organizations are requiring solutions that can fit small footprint requirements with robust application performance, while still being affordable, efficient and simple to manage remotely,” said Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing. “This is why we created our newest HE150 appliance, making edge computing a financially viable and practical option for more organizations. Our ability to deliver HCI technology in a smaller form factor and lower price point is making edge computing capabilities and resources more accessible to many organizations.”

Intel Research recognizes digital skills gap slowing Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing sector

Intel released Thursday results of a new study “Accelerate Industrial,” which represents comprehensive view of Industry 4.0, the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector. The research uncovered a serious skills gap that most Western industrial production training programs and government investment initiatives fail to address.

The study found that current leaders need to create tomorrow’s future-ready workforce. This requires the collaboration of universities, government and industry – including initiatives that focus on worker training for the transforming manufacturing sector.

“Accelerate Industrial” was conducted and authored by Dr. Faith McCreary, a principal engineer, experience architect and researcher at Intel, in tandem with Dr. Irene Petrick, senior director of Industrial Innovation for Intel’s Industrial Solutions Division. The study encompasses mobile ethnographies and interviews with over 400 manufacturers and the ecosystem technologists that support them. The work is being released as a series of reports.

A recent Deloitte/Manufacturing Institute study suggests that industries are entering a period of acute long-term labor shortages, with a shortfall in manufacturing expected to be 2.4 million job openings unfilled by 2028, resulting in a $2.5 trillion negative impact on the U.S. economy. Germany and Japan, two other developed economies, are expected to fare even worse in terms of this projected labor shortage.

With the increasing proliferation of data, connectivity and processing power at the edge, the industrial internet of things is becoming more accessible. However, successful adoption remains out of reach for many: two of three companies piloting digital manufacturing solutions fail to move into large-scale rollout.

The study uncovered the top five challenges cited by respondents that have the potential to derail investments in smart solutions in the future, with 36 percent citing “technical skill gaps” that prevent them from benefiting from their investment; 27 percent expect “data sensitivity” from increasing concerns over data and IP privacy, ownership and management; 23 percent found that they lack interoperability between protocols, components, products and systems; 22 percent citing security threats, both in terms of current and emerging vulnerabilities in the factory; and 18 percent reference handling data growth in amount and velocity, as well as sense-making.

“Accelerate Industrial” points to the rising importance of the digital skills required to navigate and succeed in this new landscape.

The research found that while there is a big appetite for digital transformation – 83 percent of companies plan to make investments in smart factory technologies – the most important skills and characteristics cited for that transformation are not ones that are typically emphasized by most industry job training programs or relevant policymakers.

Future skills cited by respondents point to the need to go beyond the basics of programming to embrace a deep understanding of digital tools, from data collection to analytics and real-time feedback directly to the operating environment. 

The top five future skills required to support digital transformation in manufacturing are “Deep understanding” of modern programming or software engineering techniques; “digital dexterity,” or the ability to leverage existing and emerging technologies for practical business outcomes; data science; connectivity, and cybersecurity.

Intel Solutions Marketplace for Partners enhances speed growth, innovation through global collaboration

Intel launched Intel Solutions Marketplace platform to help partners deploy solutions in an increasingly complex, data-centric economy. On the new platform, and all from personal dashboards, Intel partners can grow their businesses through new partner connections and matchmaking, receive and manage leads, monitor business performance, and market solutions to end customers. 

The Intel Solutions Marketplace is an online platform that drives collaboration in a new data-centric landscape, where users can explore offerings and network with Intel partners. For partners who have posting access, the Intel Solutions Marketplace enables network and co-create with industry providers, differentiate offerings and showcase them to enterprise end customers. 

The platform joins Intel Partner University as a key offering of Intel Partner Alliance, the company’s announced channel partner program transformation designed to help partners connect, innovate and grow in a data-centric world.

The Solutions Marketplace facilitates better collaboration between partners, helping them focus on desired outcomes and delivering customization. The platform is equipped with new capabilities that enable partners to connect and collaborate with a global network of other peer partners to jointly deliver innovative data-centric solutions to business end customers. 

Today, solutions typically include hardware, software and services in varying combinations and are increasingly being designed to solve specific business challenges. 

For example, a solution to help a municipality reduce energy consumption using smart devices could be entirely led by the services side of the business, while an artificial intelligence solution to drive predictive maintenance for reduced downtime might be led by a software or hardware vendor. The Solutions Marketplace makes this kind of collaboration easier and more efficient.

Intel Solutions Marketplace encourages partners to collaborate within an expanded ecosystem, allowing Intel partners and business end customers to research and pursue thousands of partner solutions, including Intel IOT Market Ready Solutions, artificial intelligence, autonomous technology, data center and cloud, 5G, and next-generation computing. It enables a new way for partners to innovate, go to market and grow their businesses.

The Intel Solutions Marketplace is designed to drive collaboration across the ecosystem, making it easy for partners to connect with each other, all within the trusted Intel ecosystem. Intel will roll out enhancements throughout 2020 to help partners manage leads, monitor performance from personal dashboards and continue to grow their businesses.

Intel completes sale of its smartphone modem business to iPhone maker Apple

Intel announced on Monday that it has completed the sale of the majority of its smartphone modem business to Apple. This transaction, valued at US$1 billion, was announced in July. 

As previously disclosed, this transaction enables Intel to focus on developing technology for 5G networks while retaining the option to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, internet of things devices and autonomous vehicles.

Intel and Apple have signed an agreement for Apple to acquire the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business. Approximately 2,200 Intel employees will join Apple, along with intellectual property, equipment and leases. 

Combining the acquired patents for current and future wireless technology with Apple’s existing portfolio, Apple will hold over 17,000 wireless technology patents, ranging from protocols for cellular standards to modem architecture and modem operation. 

Intel will retain the option to develop modems for non-smartphone applications, such as PCs, internet of things devices and autonomous vehicles.

Intel opposes Qualcomm’s appeal in US District Court; files brief supporting FTC

Intel files a brief supporting the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and opposing Qualcomm’s appeal of the judgment rendered in May against Qualcomm by the United States District Court, Northern District of California. 

The District Court found that “Qualcomm’s licensing practices have strangled competition in the CDMA and premium LTE modem chip markets for years, and harmed rivals, OEMs and end consumers.” The District Court also found that Qualcomm’s conduct “unfairly tends to destroy competition itself.”

Intel agrees with the District Court’s findings. Intel suffered the brunt of Qualcomm’s anticompetitive behavior, was denied opportunities in the modem market, was prevented from making sales to customers and was forced to sell at prices artificially skewed by Qualcomm. 

Qualcomm would have you believe that its position in the market today — as the last surviving U.S. supplier of premium modem chips — is due to its “ingenuity and business acumen,” and that its rivals in the market failed simply because “they did not offer good enough chips at low enough prices.” This is simply not true.

Instead, as detailed in the District Court’s opinion and in our brief, Qualcomm maintained its monopoly through a brazen scheme carefully crafted and implemented over many years. This scheme consists of a web of anticompetitive conduct designed to allow Qualcomm to coerce customers, tilt the competitive playing field and exclude competitors, all the while shielding itself from legal scrutiny and capturing billions in unlawful gains.

The victims were Qualcomm’s own customers (original equipment manufacturers or OEMs), the long list of competitors it forced out of the modem chip market, including Intel, and ultimately consumers. 

Intel fought for nearly a decade to build a profitable modem chip business, and invested billions, hired thousands, acquired two companies and built innovative products that eventually made their way into Apple’s iPhones, including the most recently released iPhone 11. 

But when all was said and done, Intel could not overcome the artificial and insurmountable barriers to fair competition created by Qualcomm’s scheme and was forced to exit the market this year.

“As I have pointed out before, the District Court’s decision finding Qualcomm violated the antitrust laws comes on the heels of governmental entities around the globe reaching the same conclusion,” wrote Steven R. Rodgers is executive vice president and general counsel at Intel, in a post. “As a result of its anticompetitive practices, Qualcomm has been fined nearly $1 billion in China, $850 million in Korea, $1.2 billion by the European Commission and $773 million in Taiwan (later reduced in settlement). The FTC, however, did not seek monetary relief. Instead, it sought injunctive relief to prevent Qualcomm from continuing to engage in its unlawful conduct.”

Among other things, the District Court prohibited Qualcomm from continuing to implement the central component of its scheme, its coercive “no license, no chips” (NLNC) policy. Under the policy, Qualcomm cuts off handset OEMs’ purchases of modem chips unless they enter into a patent license agreement on Qualcomm’s terms. These onerous, one-sided terms enable Qualcomm to artificially lower the price of its modems while simultaneously inflating customers’ costs of using modem chips manufactured by competitors, like Intel, by charging royalties as large as the price of the modems themselves. 

The District Court concluded that the NLNC policy, together with other anticompetitive behavior on Qualcomm’s part, unlawfully distorted and, in fact, destroyed the competitive playing field.

The world benefits from fair competition in the wireless technology market. Given the importance of wireless technology to the future of connected computing, including the revolutionary promise of 5G, we strongly support the efforts of the FTC and other law enforcement agencies to require Qualcomm to obey the laws and compete on a level playing field.

“We hope our amicus brief will help in clarifying the full extent of the harm that Qualcomm’s unlawful behavior has caused and will continue to cause if left unchecked,” Stevans added.

Intel releases tiny EMIB that assist chips to ‘talk’ with each other

Intel unveiled its Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIBs) chips that speed the flow of data inside nearly 1 million laptops and field programmable gate array devices worldwide. That number will soon soar and include more products as EMIB technology enters the mainstream. 

EMIB is a cost-effective approach to in-package high density interconnect of heterogeneous chips. It delivers a complex multi-layered sliver of silicon no bigger than a grain of rice, and lets chips fling enormous quantities of data back and forth among adjoining chips at blinding speeds: several gigabytes per second.

The industry refers to this application as 2.5D package integration. Instead of using a large silicon interposer typically found in other 2.5D approaches, EMIB uses a very small bridge die, with multiple routing layers. This bridge die is embedded as part of the substrate fabrication process.

For example, Intel’s Ponte Vecchio processor, a general-purpose GPU the company unveiled this month, contains EMIB silicon.

To meet customers’ unique needs, this innovative technology allows chip architects to cobble together specialized chips faster than ever. And compared with an older, competing design called an interposer — in which chips inside a package sit atop what is essentially a single electronic baseboard, with each chip plugged into it — tiny, flexible, cost-effective EMIB silicon offers an 85 percent increase in bandwidth. That can make tech — laptop, server, 5G processor, graphics card— run faster, and next-generation EMIB could double or even triple that bandwidth.

The silicon interposer in a typical 2.5D package is a piece of silicon larger-than-all interconnecting die. In contrast, the silicon bridge is a small piece of silicon embedded only under the edges of two interconnecting die. This allows for most size die to be attached in multiple dimensions, eliminating additional physical constraints on heterogeneous die attachment within the theoretical limits.

The image shows a difficult yet desirable layout. The industry standard 2.5D solution cannot accommodate this, as the silicon interposer cannot be produced large enough to connect all the die. Yet EMIB allows for the flexibility in this die placement, allowing scaling in both dimensions.

Intel debuts GPU architecture with HPC and AI acceleration, and oneAPI software stack for heterogeneous architectures

Intel unveiled its vision for extending its leadership in the convergence of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) with additions to its data-centric silicon portfolio and an ambitious new software initiative that represents a paradigm shift from single-architecture, single-vendor programming models.

Addressing the increasing use of heterogeneous architectures in high-performance computing, Intel expanded on its existing technology portfolio to move, store and process data more effectively by announcing a new category of discrete general-purpose GPUs optimized for AI and HPC convergence. 

Intel also launched the oneAPI industry initiative to deliver a unified and simplified programming model for application development across heterogenous processing architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and other accelerators. The launch of oneAPI represents millions of Intel engineering hours in software development and marks a game-changing evolution from limiting, proprietary programming approaches to an open standards-based model for cross-architecture developer engagement and innovation.

The oneAPI initiative Intel launched will define programming for an increasingly AI-infused, multi-architecture world. oneAPI delivers a unified and open programming experience to developers on the architecture of their choice without compromising performance and eliminating the complexity of separate code bases, multiple-programming languages, and different tools and workflows. oneAPI preserves existing software investments with support for existing languages, while delivering flexibility for developers to create versatile applications.

oneAPI includes both an industry initiative based on open specifications and an Intel beta product. The oneAPI specification includes a direct programming language, APIs and a low-level hardware interface. Intel’s oneAPI beta software provides developers a comprehensive portfolio of developer tools that include compilers, libraries and analyzers, packaged into domain-focused toolkits. 

The initial oneAPI beta release targets Intel Xeon scalable processors, Intel Core processors with integrated graphics, and Intel FPGAs, with additional hardware support to follow in future releases.