Hp wants you to remember this infographic, it will change the way you look at computer architecture…
Over the years, we have see hints at the future of computing, but HP has just taken a big, big step toward bringing them all together. The company has unveiled The Machine (code name, or commercial product name?), a processing architecture designed to cope with the flood of data from an “internet of things” and change the basic architecture computers have used since the 60’s. It uses clusters of special-purpose cores, rather than a few generalized cores; photonics link everything instead of slow, energy-hungry copper wires;memristors (a new type of memory designed by HP and Hynix) give it unified memory that’s as fast as RAM yet stores data permanently, like a flash drive.
The result is a computer that can handle dramatically larger amounts of data, all the while using much less power. A Machine server could address 160 petabytes of data in 250 nanoseconds; HP says its hardware should be about six times more powerful than an existing server, even as it consumes 80 times less energy. Ditching older technology like copper also encourages non-traditional, three-dimensional computing shapes (you’re looking at a concept here), since you’re not bound by the usual distance limits. The Machine shouldn’t just be for data centers and supercomputers, either — it can shrink down to laptops and phones.
Think of the Machine as v2.0 of moonshot, but with more hyper specialized compute power and the new unified memory and data that travels at the speed of light.
HP showed off a small mockup that would potentially be included in a smart phone. Exciting stuff indeed, HP held off commercialization of the Memristor technology in 2011, and it looks like they were waiting for something big. The Machine, may just be the next big thing.
Another interesting note regarding the machine is that HP intends to create a “Machine Operating System” that runs on the system. I didnt hear any specifics, but i can only guess that it would virtualize the hardware when running other operating systems the way VMWARE and XenServer do.
On a related note, Dell is mocking HP for this annoucement, not really shocking, but kind of funny.
http://www.itworld.com/hardware/422872/dell-executive-says-hps-new-machine-architecture-laughable
Even Robert Cringely had to take a stab at HP
http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/hewlett-packards-machine-vaporware-meet-empty-suit-244265
We will see if HP pulls this off like IBM did with the 360, successfully introducing microprocessors based on transistors (for its time a huge leap)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360)