Microsoft Modeling the World 1.0

Microsoft has embarked on a new journey that will allow the company to virtually democratize supercomputing and streamline access for researchers, engineers and analysts to resources that are critical to solving some of the world’s greatest problems. High-performance computing is key when it comes down to measuring, monitoring and modeling complex environments involving extremely large data sets and infinite variables.

When announcing the Microsoft Technical Computing initiative, Bob Muglia, president, Server & Tools Business, emphasized the role that technical computing could play in scenarios such as predicting the impact that a volcano eruption in Iceland would have on flight patterns in Europe, but also on the evolution of the financial markets around the world, in order to prevent “crashes” on both. Making accurate, predictive, real-time models a reality was the goal of the Technical Computing initiative, Muglia underlined.

According to Bill Hilf, general manager, Technical Computing, Microsoft’s work in this regard, will simplify the process required to put together a sophisticated computer model enough that a single researcher will be able to do it in no more than a day. At this point in time, it really takes a village to build a similar model, and months of efforts.

In a letter made public, Muglia outlined three core areas on which the Technical Computing initiative would focus:

“1. Technical computing to the cloud: Microsoft will play a leading role in bringing technical computing power to scientists, engineers and analysts through the cloud. Existing high-performance computing users will benefit from the ability to augment their on-premises systems with cloud resources that enable ‘just-in-time’ processing. This platform will help ensure processing resources are available whenever they are needed—reliably, consistently and quickly.

“2. Simplify parallel development: Today, computers are shipping with more processing power than ever, including multiple cores, but most modern software only uses a small amount of the available processing power. Parallel programs are extremely difficult to write, test and trouble shoot. However, a consistent model for parallel programming can help more developers unlock the tremendous power in today’s modern computers and enable a new generation of technical computing. We are delivering new tools to automate and simplify writing software through parallel processing from the desktop… to the cluster… to the cloud.

“3. Develop powerful new technical computing tools and applications: We know scientists, engineers and analysts are pushing common tools (i.e., spreadsheets and databases) to the limits with complex, data-intensive models. They need easy access to more computing power and simplified tools to increase the speed of their work. We are building a platform to do this. Our development efforts will yield new, easy-to-use tools and applications that automate data acquisition, modeling, simulation, visualization, workflow and collaboration. This will allow them to spend more time on their work and less time wrestling with complicated technology.”

Microsoft also launched Modeling the World website, an online destination designed to catalyze discussion around the Microsoft Technical Computing initiative.