Simulation Using Hybrid SAAS & PAAS Cloud Compute

High level architecture of a hybrid on-premise and off-premise/cloud SAAS/PAAS solution.

Simulation of very large IC designs can take weeks of compute time to complete. In order to speed up simulations, the IT department usually have to invest in either newer machines, increase RAM on existing machines, try to utilize multi-core processing (on software that supports multi-threading), faster storage, or faster networking I/O. But once the project is over, the IT investment will sit idle until the next phase of the project, or until the next project. With the advent of cloud computing, simulation of IC designs can be sped up greatly without the upfront IT cost. Instead of investing in IT equipment that will be only used during burst modes, cloud computing allows compute/storage/networking to be rented as needed. 

To protect IP in a cloud/SAAS environment, the simulation binaries can be designed to obfuscate the original design. Measures are incorporated to ensure that a break during the simulation run does not reveal design source. The output of the simulation run such as waveform, db, and log are obfuscated as well and are passed back to on-premise for debug and analysis.

This hybrid on-premise/off-premise approach can leverage cloud/SAAS for great simulation speed-up while enabling sensitive debug and analysis on on-premise.

A Map of Mobile & Web & IOT Technologies

A map of mobile, web, and IoT technologies

Web, Mobile, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies drive all modern personal and commerce interactions.  Web, mobile, and IoT technologies each have two halves - 1) the client half and 2) the server half. The client is the user facing device such as your phone or web browser. The server is the machination running in the background that the user does not see. The client-server combined offers compute, storage, or networking to its end user.  This architecture has been in use for decades.

The client side is user facing, and user view can be broken down basically into three viewing models: 1) web 2) mobile 3) internet of things. Web is essentially a web browser such as Firefox/Chrome/Safari running on your laptop with the help of HTML5/CSS3/JaveScript/AJAX.  Mobile is a smartphone such as an Apple iPhone or Samsung Galaxy  that can run apps natively in Android (Java) or iOS (Objective-C or Swift). IoT  are electronic gadgets that don't require rich user interaction, but instead have dedicated displays, buttons, and sensors. IoT devices usually run on a small Real Time Operating System (RTOS) or Linux running with a JavaScript environment called Node.JS. 

The server side is the compute/storage/networking machine that is not user facing and solely serves the client. Servers can be 1) on-premise or 2) cloud/off-premise. On-premise servers are simply compute/storage/networking machines that sit in the company property. On-premise is a term that was coined with the advent of CLOUD compute/storage/networking.  For those who have been computer users for the past 20 years,  on-premise server is not a foreign concept. Cloud/off-premise are compute/storage/networking servers that located outside of the company - in an etheral place affectionately called the "cloud".  For most consumers, the cloud offers software without the need to install it on your device. For example, if you have been using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Gmail, you have been using the cloud.  Cloud/off-premise servers are built on a hardware and software template. One popular template is called Linux Apache MySQL Python (LAMP).  can offer Software As A Service (SAAS), Platform As A Service (PAAS), or Infrastructure As A Service (IAAS).  Amazon AWS has been a leader in this field.

Usually bound by the hip but not exactly the same as cloud is the same is the term virtualization.  Virtualization basically allows physical servers (compute/storage/networking) to be converted into software. Once in the software form, these compute/storage/networking servers can be controlled via management software so that the servers can be started, stopped, moved around, and copied. The ability to do this make cloud compute/storage/networking possible.

Mobile Vertical Eco-Systems - Around In 5 Years?

The two dominant mobile platforms  -Apple iOS & Google Android - make up over 90% of the mobile market (http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp). An examination of the two ecosystems reveals some interesting facts. 1) ARM dominates the CPUs supplied into mobile devices 2) Android has over 80% of the mobile OS market share 3) there is a large HW fragmentation of Android devices (Samsung, HTC, LG, etc). Just a few mere years ago, 

Blackberry was the dominate enterprise mobile device just a mere few years ago (remember President Obama being addicted to it)? 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/05/obama_s_blackberry_president_not_allowed_to_use_iphone_for_security_reasons.html

What will the landscape look like next year? Will Samsung's Tizen rise from small devices to full mobile? Will China's home developed OS be sufficient to sell to the biggest market in the world? Will India refocus its software expertise into consumer electronics?

Nintendo Wii - Extending Product Life Cycle Via Shrunk/Price Reduced - Too Late?

Nintendo is struggle to find a way to survive. Their latest generation gaming machine - Wii U - has not sold well. Only 9 million units sold since its launch in mid 2013. (https://fortune.com/2015/06/23/shigeru-miyamoto-wii-u/)

Nintendo previous gaming machine - Wii - was a wild success. In fact, towards the end of 2013, the older Wii was OUTSELLING the new Wii U.

A product has a product life cycle : Development, Growth, Maturity, Decline. (https://hbr.org/1965/11/exploit-the-product-life-cycle).   The Wii is supposedly in the decline phase. But it has to be extended to shore up the disappointing sales in the new Wii U.  How do you extend the life of a product that is already in the Decline phase? Nintendo has shrunk (cost reduce) the original Wii and bundled it with its star software title "Mario Kart".

Extending the life of a aged product reminds me of the B-52 bomber. It is old, new replacements had arrived, but it was so well designed, it will outlive its original product life cycle (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/19/business/la-fi-ageless-b52-bomber-20130819)

Big Bang, Intel, Amazon and 4P

In the 4P marketing mix, the new ad from Intel features :

1. Product : Intel M-Core processors powering  a "laptop and tablet" combo called "2 in 1"
2. Promotion : Who better than the Big Bang actor Jim Parsons
3. Placement : amazon.com 
4. Price : The only element of the mix not addressed here

AWS - Quick Chart

Branding - Using Geography

Apple imprints "Designed by Apple in California"  on the back of their products:

DoubleDutch, a producer of apps that help event giver/organizer to give out information to the event
attendees, and more importantly, track them. They now tout " MADE IN SAN FRANCISCO"