Preparing for Multicore

Posted on September 19th, 2008

Multi-core use is growing rapidly as users expect a steady increase in the number of cores available in their computers, but firms generally don’t understand the implications for application porting and development.

“Multi-core processing has been around for decades in high-end computation on very large, sophisticated, and expensive computers,” said Peter Dzwig of Concertant. “Users designed applications specifically for massively parallel machines like Crays*. Now, within the last three or four years, Intel and AMD have brought multicore to commodity servers and even notebook computers. To make the best use of multi-core, developers will have to learn a new range of skills.”

That’s the conclusion from an annual multi-core survey run by Concertant LLP, a consultancy and training firm which specializes in multi-core computing.

“The results are significant given the wide range of experts participating in the survey and their influence in the market,” says Dzwig. The survey group covers experts in the field at all levels, from long-term strategists and consultants to programmers. Those surveyed are active in areas including finance, commerce, science, and exploration involving both embedded and general purpose systems, influencing a declared $500 million of annual purchasing. Eighty percent of the participants use multi-core products from Intel and 35 percent use multi-core AMD; some respondents use chips from both companies.

Concertant found that the market for multi-core devices is set to grow rapidly over the next few years. Respondents indicated that they are already spending a large proportion of their annual budgets on upgrading their systems, not only hardware but also software and applications, to run on multi-core. Some 50 percent already have undertaken partial upgrades to their systems within the last year. Seventy-five percent said the upgrades have improved their business efficiency and 65 percent said that the broad benefits of MCPs (reducing compute footprint:performance ratio) are being felt already.

In the longer term, the survey predicts continuing development of the multi-core market segment as the number of cores grows and user requirements for more performance continue to rise.

“Although multi-core will enable existing tasks to be carried out more quickly, many responders expect multi-core to enable new types of applications,” said Dzwig. “These cover many areas including simulation of complex mechanical systems, modeling the brain, artificial intelligence, medicine, and bioinformatics. “The survey further highlights and details many of the challenges the multi-core era will place both on application developers and on strategic planners.”

Concertant is a consultancy specializing in the application of multi-core processors. It offers a wide variety of services including strategic consultancy, training, and software optimization for parallel systems and support in the development of efficient algorithms.

For more information on Concertant, visit www. concertant.com.

To order the full report, go to www.concertant. com/multi-coresurvey2008.html.

*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.