What Is Heterogeneous Support?

Heterogeneous Support supports heterogeneous service architectures (HSAs) or computing systems. Heterogeneous support must contemplate the support burden for various operations in the same universal system environment. HSA is a type of architecture that allows for multiple systems to interoperate with each other. It provides a single point of access for all kinds of services, including hardware and software, as well as applications and data. This architecture aims to reduce complexity and increase efficiency so that you can focus on your business goals instead of figuring out how to make all your different systems work together. The idea of heterogeneous architectures has been introduced previously. It's been around for a long time—in the form of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and its multi-core build. AMD is a company that has been working on developing more than one core element on a given bus since the early 2000s. While this was initially implemented in computers, many modern devices have multi-core operations built in. In computing, there are many types of heterogeneous systems—systems comprising different components with other functions and purposes. They can be tricky to handle, but the payoff is worth it. For example, when the GPU (graphics processing unit) and CPU (central processing unit) are placed together instead of separately, they can achieve parallel processing. This means they can work together harmoniously and make complex tasks more manageable. As one expert puts it: "GPUs have been revolutionizing scientific computing in recent years." But as much as we love these hybrid machines, they can be challenging to support and maintain. For instance, experts talk about "a complex runtime system" that needs to support heterogeneous architectures—that is, being able to keep the different systems consolidated through careful observation of threads and processes, shared resources, etc.