Coffe and Ref

reshments at 3:15 p.m.

Location: ACES 2.402

Host: Lizy John

Talk Title: Optimizing system architecture with a holistic design

approach in the Blue Gene Supercomputer

Talk Abstract:
Technology
has been a main performance driver of many system
generations leverag

ing CMOS scaling to increase clock speed
and build increasingly complex
microarchitectures. As technology-driven performance gains becomes increas

ingly harder to achieve
from device scaling alone innovative system ar

chitecture
must take its place.

We will discuss how technology h

as matured and its impact
on microprocessor and system architecture. I

ncreasingly
to optimize performance for a system a holistic approach

optimizing across the entire hardware and software stack
must be co

nsidered to optimize for a range of metrics: performance
power power/

performance reliability and ease of use.

We will describe how this

integrated design approach helped
shape the Blue Gene/L supercomputer.

Blue Gene was designed
from the ground up with a focus on power/perform

ance efficiency
and reliability. The ultimate goal was to achieve extre

me
scalability and high application performance under the power
and
thermal constraints of existing data centers. To ensure
optimal system
operation Blue Gene/L is an integrated solution
combining innovative

system software tools architecture
system design and packaging at a

ll levels.

Speaker Bio:
Valentina Salapura is a Research Staff

Member with the IBM
T.J. Watson Research Center. Dr. Salapura has been

a technical
leader for the Blue Gene program since its inception. She <

br>has contributed to the architecture and implementation of
several ge

nerations of Blue Gene Systems focusing on multiprocessor
interconnect

and synchronization and multithreaded architecture
design and evaluatio

n. Before joining IBM Dr. Salapura
was Assistant Professor with the De

pt of Computer Engineering
at Technische Universit%E4t Wien. She is the
co-author of
a submission which is currently a finalist for the 2006 <

br>Gordon Bell Award the author of over 60 papers on processor
archite

cture and high-performance computing and holds many
patents in this ar

ea. She received the Ph.D. degree from
Technische Universit%E4t Wien V

ienna Austria and MS degrees
in Electrical Engineering and Computer S