The OPERA architecture, in its full implementation, has been realized with a local processing node, based on hardware accelerators and programmable DSPs, heterogeneous in its nature. This node is based on a ULP computing device. The applications on the ULP architecture has been optimized for the highest performance on the embedded platform. Through a configurable wireless connection it transfers to the server part of the computation, optimizing the overall execution. The server, based on the OPERA low power datacentre, accelerates specific functions with programmed FPGA cards. From the software perspective, the entire system implements a state-of-the-art CNN architecture, with different levels of accuracy. In the truck use case, also, the image processing application is enhanced accessing to hardware accelerators. For the objective related to new generation servers we demonstrated through the validation in the three use cases, that low power processors together with accelerators is a more efficient way to design new architectures.
On the OPERA architecture, executed in the use cases, different metrics for the power efficiency evaluation have been adopted. The energy cost of the state of the art implementation and usage (network, people involved, displays for video streaming) has been compared to the consumption of OPERA solution, not only in term of electric power consumption, but also regarding energy saving for reduced need of human control and continuous monitoring. The optimization of the power consumption has been realized through the implementation of the workload management, the heterogeneous computing, and the configurable wireless channel.
The workload management has been demonstrated through the VDI use case. Several technologies, including the containerization of legacy workloads for integration with cloud management systems and post-copy container migration for implementing the dynamic policies of the power aware scheduler have been implemented.
