2025-10-09 –, SR1
Firmware are everywhere into modern servers, we can easily count hundreds of them, including ROM, BMC, PCIe Endpoints, VRM. Maintaining them is a critical task to ensure security. Unfortunately update process is pretty slow, and finding supported and qualified combinations might be a tough task. We will propose during that talk an approach where firmware are automatically downloaded every time a server starts. We will explore various options and will run some demos based on HPE Proliant systems, and envision future of firmware and impact on such technologies on systems optimization for HPC applications.
I am thrilled by computers. I spent a lot of time designing them at architectural and hardware level, and participated to crazy projects, including building up the biggest european super computer in the late 90's. I love to share my knowledge and enable people to design better computers. I am particularly focused on open technologies currently, which includes design tools like FreeCAD, KiCAD, and open source firmware projects like linuxboot and OpenBMC. I used to work for big companies, created a french based startup that I successfully sold to an american company in 2018. I am now part of HPE mainly focused on open platforms. What does it mean will be known in a couple of months / quarters and years.