Authors: Jens Hagemeyer (UBI), Micha vor dem Berge (CHR), Ariel Oleksiak (PSNC)

This year the M2DC team decided to release the final M2DC platform at the main European HPC industrial events happening both in June in Paris and Frankfurt. Our team already is familiar with both of these events and their audiences, and therefore these were great venues for a release of the final M2DC product. It was accompanied by a comprehensive marketing campaign including the new appliance-focused marketing materials, and the new M2DC white paper highlighting the advantages of the technology. Moreover, our team was exhibiting together with the project LEGaTO, a smart mirror using the M2DC platform, showcasing the M2DC hardware and demonstrating the software that optimizes the system (SEEs).

The M2DC team was once again part of the Teratec Forum, in the campus Teratec during 11-12 June, 2019. This major event attracts more than 1 300 attendees, bringing together the best international experts in HPC, Simulation and Big Data. During the two days of the Forum, over 70 exhibitors - software manufacturers and producers, integrators and distributors, service providers, academic and laboratory researchers - presented their latest technologies and innovations in HPC, simulation and Big Data.

M2DC was present at this major event exhibiting the final version of the platform’s chassis and demonstrating selected system efficiency enhancements. We exhibited together with the project LEGaTO, with an exhibition booth at Stand #21 located at the Cafe Europeen de la Recherche. Besides the M2DC platform we also presented a smart mirror using the platform, in the context of the ongoing liaison with LEGaTO towards edge computing. The M2DC technology was also demonstrated at the M2DC partner booth from CEA in the booth #09.

The M2DC was also part of this year’s edition of the ISC High Performance industrial exhibition and conference with a booth where we officially released the M2DC platform to the German and European market. This large scale event took place in Frankfurt during 16.-20. June. Bringing together over 3,500 researchers and commercial users, and 160 exhibitors, ready to share their experiences with the latest technology and products to the HPC community.

The M2DC team was present at the booth D1151, again exhibiting together with the project LEGaTO. We had very positive feedback from all visitors to our booth. With the background of the HPC-focussed fair, the reason of using microservers was often questioned. Still, the advantages in terms of efficiency and TCO of the M2DC architecture, making use of the diverse System Efficiency Enhancements (SEEs) and especially due to the heterogeneity of the hardware architecture, was convincing to the audience. It could be shown that optimized software running on well-selected hardware is extremely efficient compared to standard solutions. Having these advantages bundled into one of the four available turnkey ready appliances eases the entry into the field of heterogeneous computing. On the booth, the Image Scaling Appliance and the Cloud Appliance were shown in a live working demonstrator, attracting the ~150 visitors.

M2DC team at the Teratec Forum 2019 releasing the M2DC platform

Jens Hagemeyer (UBI) discussing with a potential customer the value of M2DC at Teratec 2019

The presentation of a smart mirror running over the M2DC technology, at the Teratec Forum 2019, representing the successful liaison with the LEGaTO project towards edge computing

Christmann and UBI assuming the lead of commercialization of M2DC at the ISC-HPC 2019

The M2DC team discussing with the audience of ISC-HPC 2019 the advantages of M2DC technology

The M2DC team represented at ISC-HPC 2019 in front of the project’s booth