StackInsights: Cognitive Learning for Hybrid Cloud Readiness

Hybrid cloud is an integrated cloud computing environment utilizing a mix of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise traditional IT infrastructures. Workload awareness, defined as a detailed full range understanding of each individual workload, is essential in implementing the hybrid cloud. While it is critical to perform an accurate analysis to determine which workloads are appropriate for on-premise deployment versus which workloads can be migrated to a cloud off-premise, the assessment is mainly performed by rule or policy based approaches. In this paper, we introduce StackInsights, a novel cognitive system to automatically analyze and predict the cloud readiness of workloads for an enterprise. Our system harnesses the critical metrics across the entire stack: 1) infrastructure metrics, 2) data relevance metrics, and 3) application taxonomy, to identify workloads that have characteristics of a) low sensitivity with respect to business security, criticality and compliance, and b) low response time requirements and access patterns. Since the capture of the data relevance metrics involves an intrusive and in-depth scanning of the content of storage objects, a machine learning model is applied to perform the business relevance classification by learning from the meta level metrics harnessed across stack. In contrast to traditional methods, StackInsights significantly reduces the total time for hybrid cloud readiness assessment by orders of magnitude

TOFA: Transfer-Once-for-All

Weight-sharing neural architecture search aims to optimize a configurable neural network model (supernet) for a variety of deployment scenarios across many devices with different resource constraints. Existing approaches use evolutionary search to extract a number of models from a supernet trained on a very large data set, and then fine-tune the extracted models on the typically small, real-world data set of interest. The computational cost of training thus grows linearly with the number of different model deployment scenarios. Hence, we propose Transfer-Once-For-All (TOFA) for supernet-style training on small data sets with constant computational training cost over any number of edge deployment scenarios. Given a task, TOFA obtains custom neural networks, both the topology and the weights, optimized for any number of edge deployment scenarios. To overcome the challenges arising from small data, TOFA utilizes a unified semi-supervised training loss to simultaneously train all subnets within the supernet, coupled with on-the-fly architecture selection at deployment time

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Forward-central two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between trigger particles in the forward pseudorapidity range (2.5 2GeV/c. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B. V.Peer reviewe

Event-shape engineering for inclusive spectra and elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at root(NN)-N-S=2.76 TeV

Peer reviewe

Pseudorapidity and transverse-momentum distributions of charged particles in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

The pseudorapidity (eta) and transverse-momentum (p(T)) distributions of charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions are measured at the centre-of-mass energy root s = 13 TeV. The pseudorapidity distribution in vertical bar eta vertical bar <1.8 is reported for inelastic events and for events with at least one charged particle in vertical bar eta vertical bar <1. The pseudorapidity density of charged particles produced in the pseudorapidity region vertical bar eta vertical bar <0.5 is 5.31 +/- 0.18 and 6.46 +/- 0.19 for the two event classes, respectively. The transverse-momentum distribution of charged particles is measured in the range 0.15 <p(T) <20 GeV/c and vertical bar eta vertical bar <0.8 for events with at least one charged particle in vertical bar eta vertical bar <1. The evolution of the transverse momentum spectra of charged particles is also investigated as a function of event multiplicity. The results are compared with calculations from PYTHIA and EPOS Monte Carlo generators. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Elliptic flow of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays at forward rapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76TeV

The elliptic flow, v(2), of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays at forward rapidity (2.5 <y <4) is measured in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)= 2.76TeVwith the ALICE detector at the LHC. The scalar product, two- and four-particle Q cumulants and Lee-Yang zeros methods are used. The dependence of the v(2) of muons from heavy-flavour hadron decays on the collision centrality, in the range 0-40%, and on transverse momentum, p(T), is studied in the interval 3 <p(T)<10 GeV/c. A positive v(2) is observed with the scalar product and two-particle Q cumulants in semi-central collisions (10-20% and 20-40% centrality classes) for the p(T) interval from 3 to about 5GeV/c with a significance larger than 3 sigma, based on the combination of statistical and systematic uncertainties. The v(2) magnitude tends to decrease towards more central collisions and with increasing pT. It becomes compatible with zero in the interval 6 <p(T)<10 GeV/c. The results are compared to models describing the interaction of heavy quarks and open heavy-flavour hadrons with the high-density medium formed in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Centrality evolution of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density over a broad pseudorapidity range in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=2.76TeV

Peer reviewe