Kevin Deierling, Sr VP of Marketing, NVIDIA and Scott Tease, GM, HPC and AI, Lenovo Data Center Group sit down with Host Stu Miniman for a CUBE Conversation.
#theCUBE #CUBEConversation @SiliconANGLE theCUBE @NVIDIA @Lenovo
https://siliconangle.com/2020/09/15/lenovo-nvidia-partnership-bridges-hpc-enterprise-ai-switches-optimized-networking-cubeconversations/
Lenovo, Nvidia partnership bridges HPC and enterprise AI with switches for optimized networking
BY BETSY AMY-VOGT
Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a part of the everyday enterprise workflow, but the computing infrastructure to support such a data-intense task must modernize. As businesses transform to better leverage data intelligence and become more agile through cloud-native processes, high-performance networking becomes priority. But investing in the InfiniBand standard for high-performance computing network switches has been a hard sell for information-technology departments with an existing Ethernet fabric in place.
Enabling enterprise to catch the fast train to intelligent business operations are long-time partners Nvidia Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd.
“We love, from an HPC perspective, to use InfiniBand,” said Scott Tease (pictured, right), general manager of HPC and AI at Lenovo. “But most enterprise clients are using Ethernet. So where do we go? We go to a partner that we’ve trusted for a very long time. And we selected the Nvidia Mellanox Ethernet switch family.”
Tease and Kevin Deierling (pictured, left), senior vice president of marketing at Nvidia, spoke with Stu Miniman, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation on how intelligent workloads are driving the need for high-performance Ethernet switches for enterprise customers. (* Disclosure below.)
Ethernet speeds jump 40,000x in 40 years
It’s been 40 years since the first specification of Ethernet standards was published. At that time, high speed was defined as “a data rate of 10 megabits per second.” In contrast, today’s switches are designed to handle speeds up to 400GbE. “We’re about 40,000 times faster,” Tease stated.
Another change is a focus on GPU and networking performance rather than the CPU. “Trying to design a platform that’s solely based on a CPU and then jam these other items on top of it — it no longer works,” Tease said. “You have to design these systems in a holistic manner, where you’re designing for the GPU, you’re designing for the network.”
Lenovo is the world’s leading supercomputer provider. By integrating Nvidia’s Mellanox Spectrum-3 SN4000 Open Ethernet Switches into its solutions, the company brings the “rock-solid” interoperability and pre-tested capability of its InfiniBand switch to enterprise AI workloads.
“We’ve shown in HPC that the days of just taking an Ethernet card or an InfiniBand card, plugging it in the system, and having it work properly are gone,” Tease stated. “You really need a system that’s engineered for whatever task the customer is going to use.”
Nvidia invested heavily in the software ecosystem that’s built on top of the GPU and the networking, including it’s just-announced acquistion of Arm Holdings Ltd., according to Deierling. “By integrating all of that together on a platform, we can really accelerate the time to market for enterprises that want to leverage these modern workloads,” he said.
Regarding the engineering side of the solution, Tease said: “We can do all that upfront engineering to make sure that the platform, the systems; the solution as a whole works exactly how the customer is going to expect it to work,” he said. “When we’re selling these solutions, like an SAP solution, for instance, the customer is not buying a server anymore, they’re buying a solution, they’re buying a functionality. … So any of the systems that are going to be coming from us, pre-configured, pre-tested, are all going to have Nvidia networking inside of them.”
Meeting the demands of AI requires engineered solutions
The partnership in enterprise solutions is a natural extension of Lenovo and Nvidia’s work together in supercomputing. Lenovo was the first to water-cool an InfiniBand card and one of the first companies to deploy the highly scalable networking method of dragonfly topology.
“We’re looking forward to doing a lot of that same exact kind of innovation inside of our systems as we look to Ethernet,” Tease stated. He predicts a customer shift from InfiniBand to Ethernet as switch speeds continue to increase.
“Having both of these offerings inside of our lineup is going to make it really easy for customers to choose what’s best for them over time,” Tease added.
...
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Nvidia Corp. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Nvidia nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
Forgot Password
Almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please verify your account to gain access to
CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston. If you don’t think you received an email check your
spam folder.
In order to sign in, enter the email address you used to registered for the event. Once completed, you will receive an email with a verification link. Open this link to automatically sign into the site.
Register For CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston
Please fill out the information below. You will recieve an email with a verification link confirming your registration. Click the link to automatically sign into the site.
You’re almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please click the verification button in the email. Once your email address is verified, you will have full access to all event content for CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston.
I want my badge and interests to be visible to all attendees.
Checking this box will display your presense on the attendees list, view your profile and allow other attendees to contact you via 1-1 chat. Read the Privacy Policy. At any time, you can choose to disable this preference.
Select your Interests!
add
Upload your photo
Uploading..
OR
Connect via Twitter
Connect via Linkedin
EDIT PASSWORD
Share
Forgot Password
Almost there!
We just sent you a verification email. Please verify your account to gain access to
CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston. If you don’t think you received an email check your
spam folder.
In order to sign in, enter the email address you used to registered for the event. Once completed, you will receive an email with a verification link. Open this link to automatically sign into the site.
Sign in to gain access to CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston
Please sign in with LinkedIn to continue to CUBE Conversations 2020 | Boston. Signing in with LinkedIn ensures a professional environment.
Are you sure you want to remove access rights for this user?
Details
Manage Access
email address
Community Invitation
Kevin Deierling, NVIDIA and Scott Tease, Lenovo | CUBE Conversation, September 2020
Kevin Deierling, Sr VP of Marketing, NVIDIA and Scott Tease, GM, HPC and AI, Lenovo Data Center Group sit down with Host Stu Miniman for a CUBE Conversation.
#theCUBE #CUBEConversation @SiliconANGLE theCUBE @NVIDIA @Lenovo
https://siliconangle.com/2020/09/15/lenovo-nvidia-partnership-bridges-hpc-enterprise-ai-switches-optimized-networking-cubeconversations/
Lenovo, Nvidia partnership bridges HPC and enterprise AI with switches for optimized networking
BY BETSY AMY-VOGT
Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a part of the everyday enterprise workflow, but the computing infrastructure to support such a data-intense task must modernize. As businesses transform to better leverage data intelligence and become more agile through cloud-native processes, high-performance networking becomes priority. But investing in the InfiniBand standard for high-performance computing network switches has been a hard sell for information-technology departments with an existing Ethernet fabric in place.
Enabling enterprise to catch the fast train to intelligent business operations are long-time partners Nvidia Corp. and Lenovo Group Ltd.
“We love, from an HPC perspective, to use InfiniBand,” said Scott Tease (pictured, right), general manager of HPC and AI at Lenovo. “But most enterprise clients are using Ethernet. So where do we go? We go to a partner that we’ve trusted for a very long time. And we selected the Nvidia Mellanox Ethernet switch family.”
Tease and Kevin Deierling (pictured, left), senior vice president of marketing at Nvidia, spoke with Stu Miniman, co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation on how intelligent workloads are driving the need for high-performance Ethernet switches for enterprise customers. (* Disclosure below.)
Ethernet speeds jump 40,000x in 40 years
It’s been 40 years since the first specification of Ethernet standards was published. At that time, high speed was defined as “a data rate of 10 megabits per second.” In contrast, today’s switches are designed to handle speeds up to 400GbE. “We’re about 40,000 times faster,” Tease stated.
Another change is a focus on GPU and networking performance rather than the CPU. “Trying to design a platform that’s solely based on a CPU and then jam these other items on top of it — it no longer works,” Tease said. “You have to design these systems in a holistic manner, where you’re designing for the GPU, you’re designing for the network.”
Lenovo is the world’s leading supercomputer provider. By integrating Nvidia’s Mellanox Spectrum-3 SN4000 Open Ethernet Switches into its solutions, the company brings the “rock-solid” interoperability and pre-tested capability of its InfiniBand switch to enterprise AI workloads.
“We’ve shown in HPC that the days of just taking an Ethernet card or an InfiniBand card, plugging it in the system, and having it work properly are gone,” Tease stated. “You really need a system that’s engineered for whatever task the customer is going to use.”
Nvidia invested heavily in the software ecosystem that’s built on top of the GPU and the networking, including it’s just-announced acquistion of Arm Holdings Ltd., according to Deierling. “By integrating all of that together on a platform, we can really accelerate the time to market for enterprises that want to leverage these modern workloads,” he said.
Regarding the engineering side of the solution, Tease said: “We can do all that upfront engineering to make sure that the platform, the systems; the solution as a whole works exactly how the customer is going to expect it to work,” he said. “When we’re selling these solutions, like an SAP solution, for instance, the customer is not buying a server anymore, they’re buying a solution, they’re buying a functionality. … So any of the systems that are going to be coming from us, pre-configured, pre-tested, are all going to have Nvidia networking inside of them.”
Meeting the demands of AI requires engineered solutions
The partnership in enterprise solutions is a natural extension of Lenovo and Nvidia’s work together in supercomputing. Lenovo was the first to water-cool an InfiniBand card and one of the first companies to deploy the highly scalable networking method of dragonfly topology.
“We’re looking forward to doing a lot of that same exact kind of innovation inside of our systems as we look to Ethernet,” Tease stated. He predicts a customer shift from InfiniBand to Ethernet as switch speeds continue to increase.
“Having both of these offerings inside of our lineup is going to make it really easy for customers to choose what’s best for them over time,” Tease added.
...
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Nvidia Corp. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Nvidia nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
