Eurotech— from Sensors to Supercomputers
The number of intelligent devices is lurching toward the trillions and the number of
people interacting with them is in the billions. Making all the data and functionality
available and useful requires a comprehensive ecosystem.
by Tom Williams, Editor-in-Chief
What kind of embedded computing company also produces Petascale supercomputers—
computers running at over 1,000 Teraflops—and considers them integral to their
embedded business? The answer is Amaro, Italy-based Eurotech, which has recently
introduced its Aurora scalable supercomputer. But Eurotech is very much an embedded
systems company offering a wide range of embedded boards, stationary and mobile
integrated devices as well as wearable integrated systems such as their wrist wearable
Zypad computer. In fact, the company says it gets over half its revenue from integrated,
application-ready box-level embedded systems. And a scalable supercomputer too??
According to company president and CTO Arlen Nipper, “Without embedded systems,
IT wouldn’t have anything to do.” Well, maybe not much to do, but the converse would
seem to imply that because of embedded systems, specifically connected embedded
systems, there is so much data and so much knowledge that can be made use of at higher
levels that IT-scale systems need to be greatly expanded to deal with it all and need to be
thought of as an integral part of what embedded systems are designed to do.
The application areas addressed by Eurotech’s products and technologies are not exactly
exotic—mass transportation, logistics, machine automation and process control, medical
instrumentation to name a few. However, the concept of a multi-layered, interconnected
information environment based on those embedded devices is something that is being
promulgated throughout the company’s self image—and thus to its customers. In fact,
having struggled through terms like cloud computing and pervasive computing, Eurotech
has coined its own description, called Everyware, to encompass the boards, systems,
routers and gateways, integrated boxes, software components and tools as well as the
supercomputer environment.
Consider a transportation system like a train or a truck fleet. Managing such systems is
often cites as a prime example of “machine-to-machine” systems technology and this is
indeed the case. The hierarchy of devices in the vehicle alone comprises a small network
representing different aspects of a vehicle’s operation such as bearing wear, fuel,
vibrations and GPS location. Depending on the type of transportation system, there will
also be other subsystems such as surveillance, passenger count, freight load and
destinations and more. The individual vehicle collects all this data in an onboard
systems—often a rugged mobile computer built into the vehicle—and is then linked to
the larger fleet management system via satellite, WWAN or other wireless connection
(Figure 1).
By the same token, industrial plants, hospitals and gambling casinos consist of devices
from sensors, cameras, machine controllers and more all connected to a local network,
sometimes with a local human interface, but also usually to a much larger supervisory
system where “islands of knowledge” can be evaluated and used together for even larger
goals. Imagine, as a simple example, that an anomalous pattern showing up at the
blackjack table could alert an operator and at the same time direct the security camera to
that table. Thus, even the wearer of a PC-based wrist computer with a wireless
connection is an integral part of a much larger application (Figure 2).
Of course, such systems are already being implemented with diverse hardware elements,
supervisory mainframes and software components plus specialized application
programming. The Everyware environment seeks to offer components for the entire range
of the hierarchy ranging from components and devices for real world applications to
connectivity platforms making heavy use of wireless technology to build the edge and on
up to the “big iron” that enables the cloud where information is collected, processed, used
by human operators and redistributed to devices that need it.
These then must be knit together with a compatible set of software modules that enable
the system developer to begin adding value at a higher level than operating systems and
board support packages. Starting with bootloader/BIOS and operating system at the board
level, the software environment must enable the domain experts to begin assembling
systems and then adding value without having to struggle with their non-core
competencies.
To this end, Eurotech is launching its Everyware Software Framework (ESF), on its
Atom-based embedded platforms (Figure 3). The ESF offers open source Eclipse-based
development tools along with the Java Micro Edition Virtual Machine built up on board
support software (BIOS, operating systems, drivers, etc) for the various hardware
platforms ranging from its Atom-based Catalyst module to the new Helios programmable
edge controller to the DuroCOR 1200/1400 rugged mobile computers, to name a few.
Beyond the Java level, however there is an OSGi application framework consisting of
“bundles” that represent a sort of embedded middleware that lets application developers
get started at an even higher level. Foundation bundles are functional packages such as
device virtualization, diagnostics, security, firewall, WiFi management and so forth that
are common to a great many applications. Beyond that are some more domain-specific
bundles that are common to various application domains such as GPS and passenger
counters for transportation or Bluetooth and USB profile bundles for medical devices.
At the top of the pyramid and tying it all together is a very unusual system for an
embedded vendor to produce let alone to engineer as an integral part of its embedded
vision and that is the Aurora scalable supercomputer. Aurora is based on a compute node
built around two Intel Xeon 5500 series quad-core processors (formerly code-named
Nahalem). Each processor is equipped with up to 12 GB ofDDR3-1333 RAM and
interfaces via a 5520 chipset to three system networks: a unified general-purpose network
based on QDR Infiniband, a second network based on a switchless toroidal topology and
a third global synchronization network that provides a pacing mechanism at the system
level. Each compute node uses a solid-state drive for local storage and the Infiniband
network supplies access to the larger storage area network (Figure 4).
Each compute node can supply over 93 GFLOPS of peak performance and up to 32
compute nodes can be plugged into a 6U chassis amounting to 3 TeraFLOPS of peak
performance. A chassis consists of two 16-node 19-inch racks set back-to-back with the
liquid cooling system between them. The liquid cooling system moves coolant through
cooling plates mounted against the devices on both sides of each board. These are
connected via leak-free push-to-connect devices to help enable the hot-swap capabilities
of the boards. Chassis can be arranged in a rack containing eight full chassis for a peak
performance of 24 TeraFLOPS. Connecting up to 42 such racks can deliver a peak
performance of 1 PetaFLOPS—over 1,000 TeraFLOPS.
As intelligent electronic devices continue to shrink in size and grow in power, they
become an ever more natural part of everyday life. Eventually, we may so take them for
granted that we accept them as extensions of our own perceptions and sensations. But
behind that natural acceptance is an ever growing and ever more complex infrastructure
that must work seamlessly and intuitively. Thanks to this, it seems like IT does have
something to do after all. And it may also just have the means to do it.