From left to right: Alexander J. Brink (Head of Science Alliances at IBM and Chairman Steering Board Dome), Jet Bussemaker (Minister of Education, Culture and Science) and Henk Smid (Managing Director Variass).
Variass will produce the first series of 26 copies of 64-bit microservers for the largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Variass is doing this on behalf of ASTRON and IBM. This news was announced during the Hannover Messe on March 25, 2016 in the presence of Minister Jet Bussemaker of Education, Culture and Science.
Astron and IBM are working together to build the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the DOME project, funded by the Province of Drenthe and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
micro servers
The first microservers for this super telescope are being developed by our high-tech partner Variass and will be ready this summer, according to managing director Henk Smid. ,,The Microserver is an example of innovation that pushes the boundaries by making components smaller and smaller and combining them.’’
Ronald Luijten of IBM Research in Zurich calls Variass” microservers ”a data center in a box.” ”With the combination of power and energy efficiency, we believe the technology is also interesting for other applications, in particular for cloud data centers, Big Data analytics applications and cognitive Internet of Things.”” Accordingly, IBM has signed a "letter of intent" in front of the minister for a follow-on order of another thirty to forty Variass microservers that will be used to demonstrate an initial Micro Data Center prototype.
SK
SKA is to be a revolutionary radio telescope with thousands of connected receivers spread over an area the size of a continent. The total reception area of all receivers combined is to be one square kilometer. The dishes that will make up this super telescope will be located in both South Africa and Australia. This year construction will begin on SKA, which will be fully operational by 2024.
Would you like to know more about the SKA? Follow the following links: