PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 14, 2023 – Zettar and AIC have announced that they will demonstrate a data movement appliance at Supercomputing 2023 (SC23), November 12 – 17, 2023, in collaboration with Intel. This is the world’s first showcase of such an appliance using IPUs with the built-in ability to offload a large variety of data movements – users no longer need to use multiple applications for different data movement scenarios.

The appliance supports both bulk and streaming data transfer, locally (within a host or a cluster) and over any distance. The design uses regular processors initially. Once such IPUs become generally available in early 2024, it is anticipated that such appliances can offload data movements to IPUs but still provide up to Tbps data rates.

The high-speed streaming capability enables the fast emerging real-time decision-making need for data-intensive endeavors. For example, whether the samples for Cryo-EM microscopes are properly prepared quickly, instead of waiting for 2-3 days. The Intel/Zettar appliance reference design has been operational since Q3 2023 on a testbed in Intel’s UK lab. The design is available to any Intel server vendor partners.

The design is timely. In 2016, the amount of data in the world entered the hockey stick phase. In recent years, two major IT trends have emerged: the edge to core/cloud paradigm and disaggregated infrastructure. In 2022, Generative AI and large language models were also introduced. The trio has created a “perfect storm” that has made it impossible to ignore the importance of moving data at scale and speed. Due to the massive amounts of data involved, nowadays, the Healthcare and Life Sciences (HLS) vertical must use HPC. Both need to use AI-based approaches. There is more and more need to make real-time decisions too. Current solutions in the market are incapable of dealing with this new reality. The Zettar data movement appliance enables “plug and play.” It also addresses three foremost data movement challenges once and for all:

1. The need for site-specific H/W and S/W tuning
2. The distance (aka network latency) impact
3. Data exchange with collaborators

The reference design testbed incorporates four Intel IPUs. The unified software data mover Zettar zx is used to aggregate them into two collaborative dual-node clusters.

The left side is the topology of the Intel/Zettar data movement reference design testbed. On the right-hand side. The top shows bulk transfer sweep results. From 1MiB to 1TiB, the transfer rate is basically at the line rate (100 Gbps). The lower half shows streaming data rates, The same story.

This forward-looking design addresses the pressing need to minimize space usage, complexity, and cost – both acquisition and operational. It is rich in Environmental, Societal, and governance (ESG) benefits. Furthermore, it often helps avoid tedious and costly forklift upgrades.

This project leverages resources from both Intel’s UK lab and AIC Inc.’s lab in California. Specifically, in the Intel UK lab, Two Intel M50CYP2UR208 Server Systems; 1 x Intel E810-CQDA2 100G NIC; 8 x Intel DC P5800X 800G Optane SSDs aggregated using Linux software RAID as a RAID 0 array. Four C5010X IPUs made by Silicom based on the Intel C5000X-PL IPU design. AIC Inc. has furnished an SB201-HK, with 4 x Micron 9400 MAX 6.4TB NVMe SSDs, and an Intel F2000X-PL IPU. The unit is available in the AIC SC23 booth for review.

A recorded talk is provided in both AIC’s SC23 booth 2037 and Intel’s SC23 booth 617. The talk includes a live demo.

“Data tsunami is engulfing all verticals these days. Health data alone accounts for over 30% of the world’s data (Intel, 2022). CryoEM and photon-counting CT, two types of modern high-speed biomedical instruments, generate 20-60 TB/day per run. The appliance can not only move this data from the edge, where the instruments are located, to the core and/or cloud for further analysis with AI-powered pipelines but also make real-time data transport practical for real-time decision-making. It also simplifies and streamlines the workflow. Faster data movement can accelerate medical and scientific breakthroughs, improving the quality of life for all.” according to Chin Fang, Founder and CEO, of Zettar Inc.

“Datacenters have traditionally been monotonous in terms of computer architecture, consolidating resources in a single unit and sharing them through interconnection networks. However, the cost of delivering resources to gigantic data sets is becoming increasingly high. Heterogeneous computing and datacenter resource disaggregation will become new ways to leverage different processing capabilities to meet different computing demands.

IPUs/DPUs reflect the idea of offloading specialized tasks, such as NVEe storage acceleration, RDMA, encryption, compression, data deduplication, and even future CXL-based resources with either cache coherence or non-cache coherence. This can eliminate the performance penalty of data movement.

“Zettar provides a unified and efficient large data movement solution that will be an essential tool for dealing with IPU/DPU-enabled datacenter infrastructure,” said CT Sun, CTO and Vice President of Engineering of AIC Inc.

About Zettar

Zettar’s data mover software has earned a global, peerless reputation in the high-end HPC space for being the simplest, most efficient, and most versatile unified software data mover for moving data at scale, and at the speed of light. It is the world’s only commercial software whose design and capability have been motivated by Linac Coherent Light Source II, a premier U.S. DOE Exascale Computing preparation project. For more information, contact [email protected].

About AIC Inc.

AIC is a leading provider of both OEM/ODM and COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) and server and storage solutions. With expert in-house design, manufacturing, and validation capabilities, AIC’s products are highly flexible and configurable to any form factor, standard or custom. AIC has led the industry since 1996 with experience in mechanical, electronic, and system-level engineering as well as a dedication to innovation and customer satisfaction. Headquartered in Taiwan, AIC has offices and operations throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe.

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Source: Zettar Inc.