European SIMDAT project underpins automotive and aerospace grid computing
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An industrial-strength grid computing platform, developed through groundbreaking European research, is behind commercial applications of low cost supercomputing.
The SIMDAT project created a portfolio of tools and services that its researchers say brings the power of grid computing (compute and storage) to industrial applications, but without the usual costs.
And the reason: business functions, such as industrial strength service-level agreements, management and security. Together, those mean the advent of reliable virtual organisations, as well as massive compute power for engineering development and the like.
Clemens-August Thole, Fraunhofer SCAI, SIMDAT project coordinator, gives the example of data compression, which, he says, was one small aspect of SIMDAT’s R&D programme.
SIMDAT made three improvements relating to large data transfers, typical in grid applications. First, it boosted compression by a factor of 10. Second, it developed meta-models that provide accurate analyses of whole datasets so that data could be exchanged as small footprint meta-models. And third, it enable complex queries within summaries.
“The data compression technology we developed is now used by most of the automotive companies in Germany and is going to be used by 30% of the automobile companies worldwide – so it is already a mature product. And meta-modelling has become a standard technology inside BAE Systems for numerical optimisation,” comments Thole.
The SIMDAT project received funding from the ICT strand of the Sixth Framework Programme for research. This is the third and last part of a three-part series on SIMDAT.
