Interning in Arithmancy

Mr Andrew Over (Australian National University)

DCS SEMINAR SERIES

DATE: 2005-08-24
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: DCS Seminar Room
CONTACT: JavaScript must be enabled to display this email address.

ABSTRACT:
Although academia and industry have a shared interest in many research areas, their underlying concerns and motivations (not to mention resource allocations) diverge substantially. As a result of these differences, corporate research can be quite a departure from a university environment. Interning in corporate research labs provides a good opportunity to experience industry's approach to research first hand.

In this talk, I will discuss my experiences interning in Sun Labs' Computer Architecture Performance (or Arithmancy) Group. This group is responsible for developing and adapting performance analysis methodology over a wide range of system sizes (from a single processor to systems with tens of thousands of processors). Participating in the group's research projects proved an invaluable experience, and provided the opportunity to collaborate with several researchers in a variety of performance analysis specialities.

I will also discuss the observed difference in performance analysis philosophy between Sun Labs and that prevalent in the literature, and how this exposure has made me rethink analysis techniques.
BIO:
Andrew Over (a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science) has just returned from a three month internship with Sun Labs in Menlo Park. He received a BE (CompSys) from UQ in 1999 and worked as a software engineer before being driven insane by the marketing department and fleeing to the safety of academia.