Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Steve Fingerhut, President of Pliops
2020 will see the slowing of Moore's Law and the rise of the accelerator
With the 50th anniversary of the Moore's Law upon
us, the principle that has seen speed and processing power double every 2 years
has slowed to a crawl. Moore's Law described an incredible force in
technology and economics, and gave rise to the prevailing Silicon Valley
mindset that each generation needs to be faster and cheaper. This mandate
for innovation has seen amazing advancements made in processes, architectures
and software. However, all good things must come to an end - and the
slowing of Moore's Law could not come at a more inopportune time: the data
explosion that is our current reality shows no signs of slowing down.
So, what is one to do? Innovative technologies that
accelerate performance are here - and they're putting the pedal to the metal
just as Moore's law steps on the brakes.
What is the biggest problem the slowing of Moore's Law
slowing is causing?
- In a word:
"sprawl". Cloud service providers have enormous incentive to
continue growth at all costs. They are throwing money and power at
the problem by installing more servers with more CPU cores. This
causes exponential problems of its own - more nodes means more and faster
networking, which also increases power and cost.
What stands in the way of solving these problems?
Why are accelerators the answer?
- Accelerators are already
speeding up graphics and AI processors - and storage and networking stand
to reap the same benefits.
- Accelerators can apply
to mainstream workloads - storage and database
- Data growth is booming
while storage and data processing slowing - accelerators solve for this.
- Another prediction: In 5
years, every storage server serving high-performance applications will have a storage accelerator.
The end of Moore's Law is indeed disruptive, and
it's creating opportunities for new leaders to emerge. The new year will see
many startups racing to be that new leader - including us here at Pliops.
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About the Author
Steve Fingerhut has built multiple new technology businesses to over a billion in annual
revenue. His experience includes SVP/GM of Toshiba Memory America's SSD
Business Unit, VP Marketing for SanDisk's Enterprise SSD division, Co-founder
and VP Marketing for LSI's Accelerated Solutions Division, and multiple roles
across sales, marketing and strategic planning at Intel. He holds an MBA degree
from Yale University.