Energy-efficient memcapacitor devices for neuromorphic computing

Data-intensive computing operations, such as training neural networks, are essential for applications in artificial intelligence but are energy intensive. One solution is to develop specialized hardware onto which neural networks can be directly mapped, and arrays of memristive devices can, for example, be trained to enable parallel multiply–accumulate operations. Here we show that memcapacitive devices that exploit the principle of charge shielding can offer a highly energy-efficient approach for implementing parallel multiply–accumulate operations. We fabricate a crossbar array of 156 microscale memcapacitor devices and use it to train a neural network that could distinguish the letters ‘M’, ‘P’ and ‘I’. Modelling these arrays suggests that this approach could offer an energy efficiency of 29,600 tera-operations per second per watt, while ensuring high precision (6–8 bits). Simulations also show that the devices could potentially be scaled down to a lateral size of around 45 nm.

Performance Evaluations of Distributed File Systems for Scientific Big Data in FUSE Environment

Data are important and ever growing in data-intensive scientific environments. Such research data growth requires data storage systems that play pivotal roles in data management and analysis for scientific discoveries. Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), a well-known storage technology combining multiple disks into a single large logical volume, has been widely used for the purpose of data redundancy and performance improvement. However, this requires RAID-capable hardware or software to build up a RAID-enabled disk array. In addition, it is difficult to scale up the RAID-based storage. In order to mitigate such a problem, many distributed file systems have been developed and are being actively used in various environments, especially in data-intensive computing facilities, where a tremendous amount of data have to be handled. In this study, we investigated and benchmarked various distributed file systems, such as Ceph, GlusterFS, Lustre and EOS for data-intensive environments. In our experiment, we configured the distributed file systems under a Reliable Array of Independent Nodes (RAIN) structure and a Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) environment. Our results identify the characteristics of each file system that affect the read and write performance depending on the features of data, which have to be considered in data-intensive computing environments.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Data-Intensive Computing in Smart Microgrids

Microgrids have recently emerged as the building block of a smart grid combining distributed renewable energy sources, energy storage devices, and load management in order to improve power system reliability, enhance sustainable development, and reduce carbon emissions [...]

Overview of Big Data-Intensive Storage and its Technologies for Cloud and Fog Computing

Computing systems are becoming increasingly data-intensive because of the explosion of data and the needs for processing the data, and subsequently storage management is critical to application performance in such data-intensive computing systems. However, if existing resource management frameworks in these systems lack the support for storage management, this would cause unpredictable performance degradation when applications are under input/output (I/O) contention. Storage management of data-intensive systems is a challenge. Big Data plays a most major role in storage systems for data-intensive computing. This article deals with these difficulties along with discussion of High Performance Computing (HPC) systems, background for storage systems for data-intensive applications, storage patterns and storage mechanisms for Big Data, the Top 10 Cloud Storage Systems for data-intensive computing in today's world, and the interface between Big Data Intensive Storage and Cloud/Fog Computing. Big Data storage and its server statistics and usage distributions for the Top 500 Supercomputers in the world are also presented graphically and discussed as data-intensive storage components that can be interfaced with Fog-to-cloud interactions and enabling protocols.