Chairperson's Message
Jonathan Hinkle
Memory Systems Architect
Viking Technology
Servers are currently undergoing disruptive changes that are reverberating throughout the $50 billion market and its ecosystem of component, board, software, system, and support vendors. Cloud computing is creating new demands and new issues. Server makers are considering new architectures, such as microservers and clusters, to meet the needs of cloud datacenters. At the same time, flash memory and SSDs, new DRAM architectures and interfaces, higher-speed network connections, virtualization, and distributed and in-memory file systems and databases have created new tradeoffs for storage systems. The challenge of dealing with “big data” has also led to a wide range of innovations.
Server Design Summit is the only conference focused on these changes. This year the Summit will pay special attention to cloud issues, including having a tutorial on designing private clouds. Sessions will once again be organized into three major tracks: energy efficiency, performance, and servers for cloud deployments. The sessions cover topics ranging from reducing power consumption through improved architectures, server and application acceleration, and optimizing servers for cloud use. We’re especially excited to have expert panel discussions on VC opportunities, server roadmaps, cloud server design, big data, and the future of server design. And we have an update from the Facebook Open Compute Project and a description of how to obtain compliant servers that reduce costs, save energy, and improve performance.
Server Design Summit attendees will learn how to cut power consumption, get the most from the servers they have, accelerate applications (including Hadoop), and define the best servers for cloud uses. It will be the place for you to see the latest products, hear a wide range of technical viewpoints and forecasts, and meet with key executives and technologists. We look forward to having you join us!
