In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team discusses a new Paypal project that is leveraging TI Keystone DSP processors for systems intelligence.
Paypal has developed a novel approach to systems intelligence. By analyzing their chaotic real-time server data, they can produce organized, intelligent results using HP’s Moonshot server powered by TI DSP processors.
The challenge confronted here is a data set that must be consumed as soon as it is created in order to yield maximum value. In PayPal’s example, they are dealing with a data set that must be analyzed as soon as it is generated and if this can be done, it could help solve problems in areas such as fraud, risk assessment, forecasting, and business analytic. Just imagine the value of on the fly, real time analysis to businesses when you can identify a pattern and act on it instantaneously. The saying “time is money” is as true as ever and acting quickly on trends exhibited by big data analysis is an untapped resource with tremendous potential. PayPal’s novel approach is to convert events represented in a plain text format into a numeric format which can be analyzed in real-time using mathematical techniques with hardware specifically designed to operate on such numeric data. The first instantiation of this approach uses ProLiant m800 cartridges powered by TI’s 66AK2Hx processor that integrates eight c66x DSP cores and four ARM Cortex-A15 cores using TI’s KeyStone II architecture running in HP’s Moonshot server platform. The 66AK2Hx SoC is ideally suited for this type of application as it possesses some unique advantages to aid in real time processing.
In this video from the 2014 HPC User Forum in Seattle, Arno Kolster and Ryan Quick from PayPal present: Update on HPC at PayPal.
