Intel Chip Chat

Jim C. Gordon, GM Ecosystem, Business Development, Strategy & Communication at Intel, dives in to the developer opportunities Intel is excited to present with the launch of the latest Intel® Xeon® E processor with Intel® Software Guard Extensions, or Intel® SGX. Data security is a hot topic for enterprises of all sizes, and Intel is working with developers and ecosystem partners to increase data protection. Jim Gordon provides a description of how Intel SGX helps create a trusted execution environment from the hardware level, and how industry partners are using Intel SGX technology in their current applications. For more developer information and toolkits, please visit https://software.intel.com/sgx and follow Gordon on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JimCGordon Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. © Intel Corporation.

With 75M+ domain names under management, GoDaddy powers the world's largest cloud platform dedicated to side hustles and small businesses. As a SaaS provider, GoDaddy’s infrastructure needs to be high performing and highly secure, but invisible to customers. The company recently made a shift in IT infrastructure strategy, moving to hybrid cloud. GoDaddy’s VP of Infrastructure Engineering, Adnan Adil, stopped by to talk about what the company is learning in the early days of its hybrid cloud implementation and how a workload optimization strategy influenced their planning. By pivoting to hybrid cloud, GoDaddy will lower the TCO of its IT infrastructure, enable faster innovation, and be able to enter new markets quickly while maintaining a consistent customer experience. And because Intel powers many of the world’s data centers, GoDaddy can move to different cloud providers with ease and confidence. For more information about GoDaddy, visit GoDaddy.com. Learn more about the Intel workload placement affinity m

IT must prioritize modernization initiatives that can help shed the burdens of legacy infrastructure, boost operational efficiency, support emerging workloads, and maintain the security of the enterprise. To do this successfully requires a holistic approach that both innovates and modernizes hardware and software investments. The end-of-support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 has been an urgent call to action for many enterprises to plan their migration strategies and evaluate the state of their broader hardware infrastructure. Eman Yarlagadda and Ken LeTourneau of the Intel Data Center Group’s Digital Transformation and Scale Solutions team stop by to talk about the varied opportunities for IT modernization that enterprises have as those end-of-support moments approach. They discuss some of the technical innovations and solutions Microsoft, Intel and their ecosystem partners offer to ease the transition. Learn more about IT modernization at intel.com/beready Learn more about how Inte

Jason Stowe, Principal Group Program Manager for Hybrid and Cluster Computing at Microsoft, joins Chip Chat from Ignite 2018 to discuss enabling HPC workloads in the cloud. Stowe and his team are responsible for facilitating traditional HPC workloads atop Microsoft Azure* cloud infrastructure. In this interview, Stowe speaks to Microsoft's approach to HPC in the cloud and delivering HPC services similar to those provided by on-premises solutions. Stowe highlights Azure's new HC instances, with Intel Xeon Platinum processors for greater horsepower for HPC workloads. For more information on Azure cloud HPC solutions, please visit azure.microsoft.com/solutions/bigcompute. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No computer system can be absolutely secure. Check with your system manufacturer or retailer or learn more at Intel.com. Intel and the Intel logo are t

In this podcast you will hear from James L Jeffers, Sr. Director, Senior Principal Engineer, Visualization Solutions Intel Corporation. Jim will discuss Intel’s continued investments in its portfolio of Open Source Software Rendering libraries to enable the industry to deliver compelling visual effects for motion pictures and photorealistic renderings for scientists and engineers with optimum time to market and total cost of ownership benefits. Intel recently established Intel® Rendering Framework as the umbrella term for its family of rendering products which includes OpenImageDenoise, Embree, OSPray & OpenSWR. Learn more about each of the libraries along with how the Intel Rendering Framework continues to drive innovations across a broad spectrum of applications. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No computer system can be absolutely secure. Check wi

Trish Damkroger, Vice President and General Manager of the Technical Computing Initiative at Intel, joins Chip Chat to share her unique perspective on enabling the high-performance computing (HPC) community. In addition to leading Technical Computing for Intel, Damkroger has since 2006 been a leader of the annual SuperComputing Conference series, including serving as the vice-chair of the SC18 conference. In this interview, Damkroger discusses the convergence of AI with traditional HPC workloads like simulation and modeling and the necessity of HPC for driving innovation in the data era. Damkroger additionally speaks to Intel announcements from SC18, including a look at the future Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors codenamed Cascade Lake advanced performance, Intel's new leadership product for HPC. These processors feature an optimized multi-chip packaging with unprecedented memory bandwidth[1] from 12 DDR4 memory channels per processor for the most-demanding applications like AI, HPC, and infrastructure as a s

Many enterprises are sold on the idea of hybrid cloud but unsure how to bring their strategy to life. Todd Christ, Enterprise Solutions Architect for the Data Center Group at Intel, explains how Intel and Microsoft are working together to develop solutions for Azure Stack that can help enterprises form a solid foundation for hybrid cloud and IT transformation. Intel Select Solutions for Azure Stack deliver an optimized, hyper-converged platform, with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Intel DC SSD, Intel Optane SSD, and Intel Ethernet Connections featuring iWARP that improve the Azure “on-premises” model for Microsoft’s hybrid cloud. Todd explains the reference design, featured products, and solution configurations in this Intel-optimized, Microsoft hybrid cloud platform that enable enterprises to go further into their hybrid cloud journey. For more information about hybrid cloud solutions, IT transformation and how Intel is working with Microsoft to develop enterprise solutions, visit intel.com/beready or int

In this episode of Intel Chip Chat, Christine Avanessians, Principal PM Manager of the Microsoft Azure Compute team at Microsoft, joins us to talk about Microsoft Azure’s Confidential Computing (ACC). ACC is a broad Microsoft initiative to protect applications and data while in use in memory in the public cloud and is enabled by Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX). Christine explains why being able to protect data in use is important for customers and how it is accelerating adoption of public cloud workloads. Christine also talks about what is new for ACC at Microsoft Ignite this week in Florida and how people can get started with Open Enclave. To learn more go to: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-confidential-computing/, or follow Microsoft Azure on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Azure. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No comput

Jennifer Huffstetler, VP and GM for Data Center Product Management at Intel, joins Chip Chat to outline the exciting new capabilities of the Intel® Xeon® E-2100 processor featuring Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX). Huffstetler is responsible for the management of Intel's data center processor and storage products. Huffstetler shares the news that Intel Xeon E-2100 processor family is now available for entry servers and protected cloud use cases. The new Intel Xeon E-2100 processor improves performance by 39%[1] compared to the prior generation, offers up to 6 cores, and supports up to 128 GB of DDR4 ECC memory[2]. Huffstetler discusses use cases for small and mid-sized businesses, larger enterprises, and customers seeking enhanced security features. Huffstetler also speaks to main takeaways from a recent panel she led (https://intel.com/xeonepanel) on Intel SGX and secure cloud services and how Intel Xeon E-2100 is preparing the ecosystem for broader adoption of Intel SGX technology. For more inf

In this episode of Chip Chat, Chris Spanton, Senior Architect of Blockchain at T-Mobile joins us live from Microsoft Ignite, to talk about scaling into the cloud with Blockchain. Blockchain provides a lot of benefits like speed, cost, efficiency, and transparency. It also allows companies like T-Mobile to audit and perform governance and review on data. Chris talks about T-Mobile’s new blockchain solution called NEXT Directory, which is built on Hyperledger Sawtooth and features Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX). Chris talks about the value that OpenSource and Hyperledger play in blockchain. For example, Sawtooth’s Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET) consensus algorithm interfaces with Intel SGX and moves the actual consensus process into the hardware, which speeds up node process and increases security. To learn more about the work that T-Mobile is doing with Microsoft and Intel in blockchain, visit https://github.com/hyperledger/sawtooth-next-directory. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depen

Prasanth Pulavarthi, Principal Program Manager for AI Infrastructure at Microsoft, and Padma Apparao, Principal Engineer and Lead Technical Architect for AI at Intel, discuss a collaboration that enables developers to switch from one deep learning operating environment to another regardless of software stack or hardware configuration. ONNX is an open format that unties developers from specific machine learning frameworks so they can easily move between software stacks. It also reduces ramp-up time by sparing them from learning new tools. Many hardware and software companies have joined the ONNX community over the last year and added ONNX support in their products. Microsoft has enabled ONNX in Windows and Azure and has released the ONNX Runtime which provides a full implementation of the ONNX-ML spec. With the nGraph API, developed by Intel, developers can optimize their deep learning software without having to learn the specific intricacies of the underlying hardware. It enables portability between Intel®

In this interview from Microsoft Ignite, Dr. Ted Way, Senior Program Manager for Microsoft, stops by to talk about Microsoft Azure* Machine Learning, an end-to-end, enterprise grade data science platform. Microsoft takes a holistic approach to machine learning and artificial intelligence, by developing and deploying complex algorithms as well as accelerating them on hardware. Azure Machine Learning is powered by Project Brainwave, using Intel® FPGAs to deliver real-time AI in the form of image recognition and classification, language understanding, speech to text, and text to speech. Intel FPGAs shine when processing unstructured data and serving a response with very low latency. At Ignite, Microsoft announced four new algorithms – ResNet-152, DenseNet-121, VGG-16, and SSD-VGG – which will allow uses even more flexibility when using the Azure Machine Learning platform. To get started with Azure Machine Learning and Intel FPGAs, visit http://aka.ms/rtai. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on sys

Dr. Jason Knight joins Chip Chat to talk about Intel support for PyTorch*. As Head of Software Product for the Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel, Dr. Knight guides the development of software to enable the best use of hardware in Intel's heterogeneous product portfolio for AI. In this interview, Dr. Knight discusses the benefits of the PyTorch framework, broader community adoption of PyTorch, and highlights Intel investments in the PyTorch ecosystem such as direct optimizations through Intel® Math Kernel Library for Deep Neural Networks (Intel® MKL-DNN), the Neural Network Distiller PyTorch algorithm testing environment, and PyTorch support in nGraph Compiler. For more from Dr. Knight, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/binarybana. For more on Intel solutions for AI, please visit https://ai.intel.com. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configur

Jake Smith, Director for Data Center Solutions and Technologies at Intel and the host of Intel's Conversations in the Cloud podcast, joins Intel Chip Chat to cover all the big ideas and news from Microsoft Ignite 2018. Smith and host Allyson Klein discuss the importance of Windows Server 19's support for next-generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory and SSDs and the incredible world record setting performance using these technologies and Windows Server* Storage Spaces Direct*. Smith additionally speaks to key Windows Server 19 features that are driving IT interest in the platform and Microsoft/Intel collaborations around Intel® Select Solutions, Azure Confidential Computing with Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX), Microsoft Brainwave* with Intel® FPGAs, and cloud HPC/AI compute in Azure based on Intel Xeon Platinum processors. For more information on Smith's work, please visit intel.com/beready, follow Smith on Twitter at @jakesmithintel, and look for Inte

Alexis Bjorlin, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Connectivity Group, joins us to discuss how Intel is driving end-to-end data center networking connectivity through cutting edge solutions including Intel® Ethernet, Intel® Omni-Path Architecture, Intel® Silicon Photonics, and more. She illustrates how Intel's connectivity portfolio unleashes the power of the data center by ensuring that data is transmitted effectively with high bandwidth and low latency at scale. For more information on Intel's connectivity strategy and portfolio, please visit www.intel.com/siliconphotonics or www.intel.com/5g.

Data insights are the currency of digital business. A data-driven culture empowers employees with the resources and skills they need to access the right information at the right time to make smart decisions. Lisa Davis, General Manager for Digital Transformation & Scale Solutions in the Data Center Group at Intel, explains the important roles that both technology and humans play in creating this culture, and how business leaders can pave the way for culture change. For more on this topic, visit intel.com/analytics or intel.com/beready.

Heather Kirksey, Vice President of OPNFV, and Bryan Madden, Marketing Director for Intel’s Network Platforms Group, joined Chip Chat to talk about a compelling new paper outlining the total cost of ownership (TCO) savings resulting from a virtualized central office (VCO). Fewer than five percent of central offices have been transformed into mini-data centers to support explosive data growth at the network edge. With the launch of 5G and proliferation of data-hungry applications, communication services providers, hardware and software companies and the open source community have a vested interest in virtualizing services on standardized hardware with datacenter processing scale and cloud flexibility. OPNFV tested the VCO proof of concept using open source software against use cases identified by Intel in its work with British Telecom (BT). The VCO TCO tool incorporates real-life data across configurations, utilization rates, enterprise customer segments and geographies, among other inputs. Operators can mod

Dr. Andres Rodriguez, a Senior Principal Engineer in the Data Center Group at Intel, stops by to talk about why it is so critical to optimize framework and software tools artificial intelligence applications. Intel has worked hard over the last two years to optimize popular frameworks like Caffe, TensorFlow, MXNet, and Pytorch for Intel® Xeon® processors. We’ve also developed the Intel® Math Kernel Library for Deep Neural Networks (Intel® MKL-DNN) to accelerate deep learning workloads on Intel® architecture. Customers are now seeing the benefits of using their existing Intel Xeon processors for artificial intelligence workloads with increasingly optimized performance. For more on this topic, visit: http://ai.intel.com. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No computer system can be absolutely secure. Check with your system manufacturer or retailer or learn

Dr. Yinyin Liu, Principal Engineer and Head of Data Science for the Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel, joins Chip Chat to talk about software tools and optimizations coming out of Intel AI Lab. Dr. Liu and her team work to converge research into data science with Intel's hardware and software technologies to contribute tools and research back to the AI community. In this interview, Dr. Liu discusses recent advancements such as NLP Architect, Reinforcement Learning (RL) Coach, and Neural Network Distiller. Dr. Liu was recently named by Silicon Valley Business Journal as one of "9 Silicon Valley women to watch who are leading in AI," https://intel.ly/2wr8S97. For more information on Dr. Liu and her team's work, please stay tuned to https://ai.intel.com/research-projects/. Intel technologies’ features and benefits depend on system configuration and may require enabled hardware, software or service activation. Performance varies depending on system configuration. No computer system can be absolutel

Gadi Singer, Vice President, Architecture General Manager, Artificial Intelligence Products Group, Intel, joins Chip Chat to discuss technology innovation and his top life lessons to help us understand AI and its natural progression into our everyday lives. With over 35 years at Intel, Gadi has been a part of driving seven architectures, including the first Intel® Xeon processors brought to market. Gadi shares with us the following lessons and knowledge he’s gleaned from his years at Intel: what breakthrough innovation requires; always “question the question” by redefining the problem; transformative innovation challenges beliefs, priorities and values; and when it’s clear it’s late (our thinking is linear and our environment is changing at an exponential rate). Ultimately, Gadi encourages us to embrace AI and its power to improve and accelerate almost any type of innovation.