|
|
|
| Read
our sister magazine: 
March 1998
|
|
|
 |
Applications
|
|
|
HPCN industry
|
|
|
Media and visualization
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
France
|
|
|
Germany
|
|
|
Luxembourg
|
|
|
Sweden
|
|
|
The Netherlands
|
|
|
United Kingdom
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| French TV selects High-Performance Network Solution
|
|
FORE, a global supplier of networking solutions, and its systems integration partner NCR are building a large ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network for the new headquarters office of France Television. The new network will be capable of carrying computer and video traffic for the company's three television stations directly to the desktop, connecting 3000 workstations with a speed of 155Mbps.
|
| CNUSC upgrades SP2 machine to 107 nodes
|
|
|
CNUSC, one of the two French national supercomputer centres for academic research, located in Montpellier, installed an additional 28 nodes in January 1998. The new configuration of CNUSC's IBM SP2 has peak performance of 51 Gflop/s and a central memory of 27 Gbytes.
|
|
|
| Learning Scientific Supercomputing
on the Internet
|
|
|
Professor Willi
Schönauer from
the
GermanRechenzentrum Universität Karlsruhe
has published eleven chapters of his book Scientific Supercomputing
on the Internet, It describes the architecture and use of shared and distributed memory
parallel computers.
|
| German bank builds enterprise-wide knowledge backbone
|
|
|
The Kreissparkasse
Hannover bank has chosen Excalibur's
RetrievalWare to build an enterprise-wide knowledge backbone throughout
its entire organisation linking over 100 offices. They expect to
recover the costs of implementation within two years.
|
| Siemens launches next generation of open mainframes
|
|
|
At the Product & Trend Show '98 in Paderborn Siemens Nixdorf presented the next generation of mainframes with standard microprocessor technology. The new SR2000-B series is based on R10000 processors with 64-Bit RISC architecture.
These models offer the opportunity to run both BS2000/OSD and certain UNIX applications on one SR2000 server at the same time, with high performance. The new servers, aimed at small- and medium-sized companies, will be available from the second quarter of 1998.
|
| SGI starts European developer program
|
|
|
Silicon Graphics launches its European Developer Program,
designed to provide software developers with the information, tools and
support they need to create applications the Silicon Graphics platform.
It is the first time that the company has headquartered such a program
outside the US.
|
| German research ministry plugs HPCN
|
|
|
The Central Institute for Applied Mathematics (ZAM, Zentralinstitut für Angewandte Mathenatik) at Research Centre Jülich organised the Conference on High-Performance Computing in Chemistry from February 16 to 18. Although it was the first with this theme at Jülich, the acceptance was extremely good, about 180 participants for such a specific topic. About 50 came from industry, chemical, software houses or hardware vendors. The topics have been grouped into: material sciences, polymer simulation, catalysis, membranes, drug design, bioinformatics, combinatorical chemistry and process and plant optimzation. The event was supported by the German Ministry of Research; the Society of German Chemists and the Working Group of Theoretical Chemists helped in the preparation of this event.
|
| The Jülich Supercomputer Centre presents its results
|
|
|
At the Conference on High-Performance Computing in Chemistry, the Jülich Research Centre, equipped with different Cray machines covering
a broad range of performance, presented itself. ZAM, Central Institute of Applied Mathematics, operates the computers and provides expertise in vector and parallel processing, porting, as well as in chemistry applications. As about 15% of the computer capacity is reserved for industrial projects, ZAM is open and interested in industrial projects, where its expertise can help to shorten the product cycle, improve the quality and reduce costs using High-Performance Computing.
|
| Eckhard Pfeiffer explains what Compaq will do with DEC
|
|
|
On January 29, Compaq held its yearly press meeting with Eckhard Pfeiffer, President and CEO. The event had a special attraction, as Compaq's acquisition of Digital became official only two days before. Pfeifer presented Compaq's view and the basic ideas around the acquisition.
|
|
|
| Banque Paribas Luxembourg brings ATM
to the desktop
|
|
|
Banque Paribas Luxembourg will use 155 Mbit/s FORE systems to
migrate the bank's Token Ring network linking mid-range departmental
servers and workstations to an ATM-to-the-desk network. LAN Emulation
and Private Network-to-Network Interfaceare running in more than 125
switches and software is taking care of bandwidth requirements as well
as redundancy.
|
|
|
| VOLVO steers towards Windows NT client/server environment
|
|
|
Volvo Car Dealers Development Corporation has selected Digital to supply desktop PCs, Intel-based servers and other hardware and services for Volvo's integrated network throughout Sweden. The agreement is valued at approximately $16 million U.S. DEC announced a significant customer win that further reinforces its leadership in delivering Windows NT solutions for the enterprise.
|
|
|
| Data Distilleries
gets 1 million
Ecu funding
|
|
|
Dutch data mining company Data Distilleries has received a million
Ecu from venture company Gilde Investment. The company is talking to American venture capitals to raise even more funds later this year to finance
expansion into the USA.
|
| Digital telecardiology helps heart urgency cases
|
|
|
Telecardiology is another candidate for applications of HPCN. In the Netherlands, a telecardiology project has been set up between the University Hospital of Groningen (AZG) and the Medical Centre at Leeuwarden (MCL). Patients' data are presented to the cardiologic staff of the university hospital in order to decide on further treatment. Making use of ISDN, the digital image transfer between the hospitals saves time
and gives more effective service towards patients needing emergency therapeutic treatment.
|
| Dutch TASC force reports on HPCN for pollution modelling
|
|
|
At the 10th Dutch TASC symposium (Transport Applications and Scientific Computing) speakers reported on the progress made in simulation of pollution in natural environments within the project "HPCN for environmental applications". Among other topics were lectures on "Numerical problems in 3D modelling of free flows" and
"A visualization module for the shallow water solver".
|
|
|
| Record draw for hpcn Initiative conference
|
|
|
The
High-Performance Computing Initiative Conference, 12-14/1/1998 took place at the Manchester Conference Centre Renolds complex on the UMIST campus 12-14th January 1998. Organisation of the conference had taken a considerable effort and it was therefore pleasing to have nearly 140 registered attendees including representatives of most of the companies active in HPC who, with NERC and EPSRC, all provided generous sponsorship enabling the event to take place.
|
| Plutonium menace threatens environment
|
|
|
For forty years, large scale computers helped design nuclear weapons. Their development was funded by Defense industrial conglomerates and many companies were sustained by these activities. With the end of the cold war things started to fracture and some HPC companies became insolvent. During the cold war nations were more concerned about producing instruments of mass destruction to kill their adversaries and paid scant attention to hazardous byproducts such as plutonium and other irradiated heavy metals which are now becoming a nightmare as environmental pollutants. Horror stories from ex-USSR countries are only the tip of the iceberg. Some work has belatedly started in the USA to address this horrendous problem and the use of High Performance Computing has become pivotal to this work.
|
| HPCN in Multi-physics processes solves engineeering problems
|
|
|
A new approach to the development of computational modelling software tools is under development by a team led by Mike Cross at the university of Greenwich, UK. It is claimed by the team that this approach
facilitates the analysis of interactive continuum phenomena (i.e. multi-physics). The numerical strategy employs a family of finite volume discritisation and algorithmic procedures in the context of an unstructured mesh. The demand for the production of new software tools comes from the need of engineers to model the interactions of a range of physical phenomena, which for example, may include fluids, solids and heat transfer as well as electromagnetic fields, the so called multi-physics aspects of the operational performance of engineering equipment in service, e.g. aircraft flutter.
|
|
|
|
|
| HPCN TTN network beats Y2K deadline
|
|
|
The
network of HPCN TTN's will be extended into the year 2000. Originally, the support and demonstration activity network of the EC Esprit programme would end March 1999. However, a number of projects still have to produce the final results. Dissemination
for these will be done in the additional year. The 20 TTN's run in total 143 projects. Netapdex, the dissemination umbrella of
number of high-speed networking
projects
acts as the 21st TTN. For the March 1998 call, there is no funding left for additional demonstration projects.
|
| PINEAPL library reaps commercial fruits of Esprit
|
|
|
NAG has released
PINEAPL Numerical Software Library, targeted at engineers, scientists and financial analysts with large scale computing applications.
The library has been developed in the HPCN European Esprit
project on Parallel Industrial Numerical Applications and Portable Libraries (PINEAPL).
PINEAPL
increases the usability of the NAG Parallel Library for dealing with computationally intensive industrial applications. Several industrial applications are being ported onto parallel computers within the PINEAPL project by replacing sequential code sections with calls to appropriate parallel library routines.
|
| Action DIRECT becomes an EU funded project
|
|
|
The Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre, EPCC, is co-ordinating a new EU project called DIRECT (Development of an Interdisciplinary Round-Table for Emerging Computer Technologies). This project is part of the concerted action in HPC, and has 14 participating teams from 7 EU countries. They intend to look into strategic developments and technological advances so they can identify future user needs and try to influence the direction of provision. Three areas are specifically targetted, namely, Visualization and Emerging Computing Techniques, Data Storage and Management, and Data Inter-operability.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| HP and EMC2 increase the availability of storage systems for
SAP R/3
|
|
|
Hewlet Packard will integrate its storage system HP OpenView
OmniBack II with solutions from Symmetrix Remote Data Facility (SRDF)
and TimeFinder from EMC2, in order to bring back or even completely
eliminate the down time needed for backup storage or retrieval of data.
Hewlett-Packard also announced the backup possibilities of SAP R/3 data
for their hierarchical storage system HP Open-View OmniStorage.The HP
systems can
transparently store Terabytes of data.
|
| IBM helps oil companies map data to POSC/CAESAR standards
|
|
|
A consortium of three Norwegian oil companies has
translated the data from three offshore oil field projects into the POSC/CAESAR model for the first time.
POSC/CAESAR helps manage the cost and life cycle issues associated with designing, building and operating an offshore platform or terminal. IBM's role in the project was to develop a tool that would allow technicians to migrate the code without learning a complex programming language known as EXPRESS-X.
|
| Netegrity extends European Distributors
|
|
|
Netegrity. a provider of security products and services for
intranet and extranet environments, announced that the Company has
finalized agreements for distribution of it's SiteMinder product in
four of Europe's major markets. The distributors include: Unipalm in
the United Kingdom, SIT Europe in France, IT WAY s.p.a. in Italy, and 2
Support Groups in the Netherlands.
Netegrity is currently recruiting
additional distributors for other countries in both Europe and Asia
|
| Tandem to ship Unix clustering for telecommunications market
|
|
|
Tandem has developed NonStop Clusters for SCO, UnixWare software.
They
deliver 10 times the availability of other
high-availability computer systems at half the price. NonStop Clusters
will be available for shipment with Compaq ProLiant servers beginning
in March 1998. The system especially suited for the telecom market, is
a highly scalable clustered operating environment.
|
|
|
| Fujitsu develops weeny 1 Gbit SDRAM
|
|
|
Fujitsu researchers have successfully fabricated a prototype
of the world's most compact 1 Gigabit Sychronous Dynamic Random Access
Memory (1Gb SDRAM), expected to be commercialized early in the 21st
century. The prototype measures just 505 mm2 (17.36 mm x 29.08 mm).
|
| SGI to distribute Ciprico's RAID storage kit
|
|
|
To help complete Silicon Graphics' High-End Storage
Offerings SGI will be reselling Ciprico's RAID 3 disk arrays for the
Origin servers and Onyx2 graphics systems worldwide. The disk arrays
are capable of throughputs from 40 to 100 Mbits/s and even higher when
disk arrays are combined. Capacity ranges from 72 Gyte to 144 GByte per
disk array
|
| Tera lost $17.8 last year
|
|
|
Tera Computer had a net loss for fiscal 1997 of $17.8 million
compared with a net loss of $12.1 million for fiscal 1996. For the
fourth quarter of 1997, the net loss was $6.7 million, compared with a
net loss of $4.8 million in the third quarter of 1997 and a loss of
$2.2 million in the fourth quarter of 1996. The company recorded its
first revenues in the fourth quarter of $73,500 for services under an
evaluation contract with the University of California, San Diego.
|
| New Beta version of SGI open-MP compilers
|
|
|
Silicon Graphics has shipped beta versions of its new MIPSpro
Fortran compilers implementing OpenMP, a industry-standard application
program interface (API) for multi-platform shared-memory parallel
programming. MIPSpro compilers are available for all Silicon Graphics
IRIX systems.
|
| Siemens Nixdorf breaks high performance barriers
|
|
|
With the S150 business server presented at this year's Product & Trend Show '98 in Paderborn, Siemens Nixdorf has broken new ground in high performance. The top of the range model in the BS2000/OSD family uses CMOS-/390 processors, the most powerful in the world; the previous ECL (Emitter-Coupled Logic) technology has been replaced by the more economical CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) technology in the top performance class. Typical applications for the S150 series are complex online transactions in the field of commerce with many thousands of users. The new business servers will be shipped from June 1998.
|
| Digital breaks 1,000 Mhz barrier with new Alpha architecture
|
|
|
Digital introduced the Alpha 21264 family, a new generation of
the 64-bit Alpha architecture that will break the GigaHertz (1,000 MHz)
speed barrier. The third-generation Alpha 21264 family will deliver up
to five times the highest performance of any architecture available
now.
Shipment is expected to
start this summer.
|
| Fujitsu introduces fastest CMOS mainframe computers
|
|
|
Fujitsu boasts the world's fastest mainframe computers, the new
Global Server model GS8800. According to Fujitsu, the GS8800 is the
fastest CMOS mainframe in the industry.
Fujitsu plans to market the
GS8800 model line in Japan, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, and
will supply key GS8800 technologies to Amdahl in the U.S.
|
| What next, a 1000 Mhz microprocessor ?
|
|
|
Yes sir, engineers at IBM Research have demonstrated the first
experimental CMOS microprocessor that can operate 1000 MHz ( 1 Ghz).
Today's fastest processors typically operate at speeds less than 300
MHz. Designed by a team of 15 engineers, the processor achieves clock
speeds of up to 1100 MHz. The processor was designed at IBM's Austin
Research Lab.
|
| High speed networking company increases revenues by almost 75%
|
|
|
GENROCO has improved sales
of its TURBOfibre family of Fibre
Channel and HiPPI storage and network controller products. Revenue for
the three months ended December 31, 1997 increased 71.6% to $1,469,000,
from $856,000 for the quarter ended December 31, 1996. Several new
GENROCO products were demonstrated at the SC '97 supercomputing trade
show held in San Jose last November.
|
| Compaq's revenue and earnings set new record
|
|
|
Compaq set record worldwide sales of $7.3 billion for the
fourth quarter ended December 31, 1997, an increase of 23 percent
compared to the fourth quarter of 1996. Net income increased by 37% to
$667 million.Compaq's worldwide sales for 1997 grew to $24.6 billion,
compared with $20.0 billion in 1996.
|
| Fastest ever benchmark performance for Unix on Oracle8
|
|
|
Fujitsu, PFU and Oracle Japan have achieved the fastest transaction processing performance for a single UNIX server system running the Oracle8 relational database management system. One Fujitsu GRANPOWER 7000 Series Model 800 server running Fujitsu's SVR4.2MP-compliant UXP/DS UNIX operating system and the enterprise edition of Oracle8 registered performance of 34,116.93 tpmC.
|
| Amdahl to ship Millennium 700 servers with CMOS and 80 MIPS speed
|
|
|
The Millennium 700 Series Servers, the latest generation of CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor)-based processors, with a uniprocessor speed of 80 MIPS, nearly 7 percent faster than originally announced. According to
Amdahl these are the biggest and fastest S/390 CMOS systems available. The servers can be ordered with up to 12 processors per system with a capacity of 686 MIPS. It is the industry's first S/390 CMOS processor ready to replace the largest ECL machines.
|
| Data General to expand AViiON NUMA servers to 64 processors
|
|
|
Data General will expand the AViiON line of NUMA servers to 64 processors using future Intel Deschutes processors. This new high-end server, code named Audubon 2, will be available before the end of the year.
The current AV 20000 NUMA server can be upgraded to Audubon 2. Data General introduced the use of the NUMA architecture in commercial computer
systems with the AViiON AV 10000 server in 1995.
The second-generation AV 20000 NUMA server was announced June 1997.
|
| Samsung gets access to Digital's Alpha secrets
|
|
|
Digital will grant Samsung Electronics an Alpha architectural license to strengthen their ongoing business relationship based on the Alpha microprocessor. In turn Samsung will create a subsidiary dedicated to the marketing and sales of Alpha
microprocessors.
Digital will work closely with the subsidiary and provide marketing and technical support.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
|
| Fujitsu's interconnect technology will leverage VI architecture
|
|
|
Fujitsu Tokyo and Fujitsu System Technologies in the US developed an interconnect technology for clustered server systems.
This technology will leverage the Virtual Interface Architecture which is the emerging industry standard supported by Intel. Fujitsu System Technologies interconnect architecture combined with support of VI Architecture provides about 200 times the speed of
current network technology.
|
| HP licensed JAVA to run on HP-UX
|
|
|
Hewlett-Packard has licensed Java compiler technology from Tower Technology Corporation to create an enterprise environment for running Java on HP-UX.
The technology will be integrated with other Java technology being developed
by HP's Compiler Laboratory in Cupertino.
|
| Amdahl adds new storage subsystem to Spectris RAID family
|
|
|
Amdahl's Spectris Platinum storage subsystem is available now. It is an addition to the family of Spectris RAID storage subsystems for the System/390, and Open Systems environments. The Spectris Platinum features a non-stop platform and upgrade capability. The capacity is up to 715 Gbyte.
Maximum throughput is increased up to 50% and response times are improved by up to 25% for online workloads compared to previous Spectris models. Storage capacity may be partitioned and allocated to S/390 or Open Systems channels.
|
| Software for SGI/IRIX now available for Cray running Unicos
|
|
|
Several software packages originally implemented on Silicon
Graphics computers running IRIX are now available for Cray J90 and Cray
T90 supercomputers running the Unicos operating system. The following
software features are now available for Cray systems running Unicos 9.3
or later releases: Bulk Data Service, high-performance implementations
of the MPI and PVM message-passing libraries and Array Services.
|
| Compaq unveiled plans in standards-based enterprise computing
|
|
|
Compaq tries to transform its Compaq and Tandem technology
with Microsoft and Oracle ito a industry standard for the enterprise
market. The cornerstone of the strategy is the E2000 Platform
Architecture that encompasses a full range of hardware and software
components as modular building blocks. By building upon technologies
like ServerNet, SANs, VIA, and eight-processor SMP, Compaq will begin
delivering clustered systems in 1999 capable of performing
approximately 200,000 transactions per minute and expects incremental
improvements to increase performance to an estimated 500,000
transactions per minute by the year 2000.
|
| SGI licenses COM technology for integration with IRIX
|
|
|
Silicon Graphics has licensed Component Object Model (COM)
software technology from Microsoft, and plans to integrate it into
future releases of IRIX. Silicon Graphics will use COM for seamless
integration and interoperability between Windows-based desktop systems
and Origin servers, in heterogeneous environments. Integration into
IRIX is scheduled by mid 1998.
|
| Digital extends line of windows NT servers
|
|
|
Digital Equipment Corporation has developed new server systems,
software and services for Windows NT. The new line includes six new
Intel-based servers, ranging from sub-$2,000 entry-level systems to
mainframe-class eight-way Pentium Pro servers. These Intel-based
servers are complemented by new Windows NT-only Alpha-based servers.
Among the new systems are four new rack servers designed for
industry-standard 19-inch racks. Recently, Digital was taken over by
Compaq for $9.6 billion, but the compay keeps its identity.
|
|
|
| Review Reality plant visualisation now available for Windows NT
|
|
|
Software designer Cadcentre has launched its Review Reality
interactive plant visualisation software on Microsoft's Windows NT
operating system. The software will be released to customers in the
second quarter of 1998. The launch of Review Reality on the Windows NT
operating system follows Cadcentre's announcement in December of the
availability of its complete range of plant design products for Windows
NT users.
|
| Cadcentre claims 33% of 3-D plant design software market
|
|
|
According to figures released by plant design software
industry analyst Daratech, Cadcentre's Plant Design Management System
(PDMS) is the most cost-effective solution in the high-end 3-D plant
design software market, on a revenue per user basis. Cadcentre systems
now account for 33% of the installed 3-D technology-driven plant design
software market. The overall market for 3-D plant design software
revenue is forecast by Daratech to grow by 22.5% during 1998.
|
| Linux helps sink the Titanic
|
|
|
According to Linux Magazine
, Digital Domain, a
production studio located in Venice, California. produced a large
number of visual effects for the film Titanic
. During the work
on Titanic
the facility had approximately 350 SGI CPUs, 200 DEC
Alpha CPUs and 5 Tbytes of disk all connected by a 100 Mbit/s network.
|
| Olympic Japanese Luge team uses SGI's 3D simulator
|
|
|
During the off-season the Japanese National Luge team trains
with a real-time, 3D computer graphics simulator. The luge simulator
uses the Silicon Graphics Onyx2 InfiniteReality graphics supercomputer
by taking actual video footage of the official Nagano Winter Olympics
"Spiral" track and recreating it in computer simulation. An
athlete is positioned on a luge sled and views the 1700-meter long
Spiral track projected on three 100-inch screens that surround the
front and sides of the luge.
|
| Compaq standardises on PERMEDIA 2 for Windows NT workstations
|
|
|
Compaq has selected the PERMEDIA 2 graphics processor as a standard graphics option for the new Professional Workstation 5100 and Professional Workstation 6000.
The Windows NT-based workstations use the PERMEDIA 2-based GLoria Synergy graphics cards from ELSA, together with Intel's 333 MHz Pentium II processor. ELSA's GLoria Synergy board is based on the 3Dlabs PERMEDIA 2 processor and includes 8MBytes of SGRAM to drive screen resolutions up to 1920x1200.
|
| ISO adopts QuickTime file format
|
|
|
The International Standards Organization (ISO) has adopted a six companies'joint proposal to use Apple's QuickTime File Format as the starting point for the development of a unified digital media storage format for the MPEG-4
(Moving Picture Experts Group) specification. The companies involved are Apple, Netscape, IBM, Oracle, SGI and Sun.
|
| Dream Pictures purchases Maya for secret animation film
|
|
|
Dream Pictures Studio (DPS) has purchased 150 seats of Maya to create one of Japan's first fully computer generated feature films.
DPS has chosen Maya, the new 3D animation software product from Alias/Wavefront, as the primary software for this
film with a production budget estimated to be approximately US$ 60 million. Maya is a modeling and animation tool with an interface that gives users the creative control and intuitiveness of traditional artists' brushes and sculpting tools.
|
| Sun acquires virtual reality and 3D patents from VPL Research
|
|
|
Sun Microsystems has acquired the patent portfolio and other technical assets of the former VPL Research, a firm in the field of virtual reality and networked 3D graphics.
The agreement includes the worldwide rights to more than a dozen key patents and related technologies. Sun intends to incorporate the VPL technologies into the Java 3D model and its other graphics products. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
|
|
|
|
|
| Unisource's 1.4 billion Ecu revenues on track
|
|
|
Netherlands based telecommunications company Unisource has
provisional revenues for 1997 of approximately three billion Dutch
guilders. At the same time, the 1997 loss was less than half that
recorded in 1996. The figures, which include the effects of
Telefónica, show Unisource to be well within company projections
for break-even by the year 2000. AT&T-Unisource Communications
Services, the joint venture with AT&T, expects to see revenues of
some 400 million Ecu in 1998.
|
| TCP/IP will overtake
ATM soon
|
|
|
In the year 2000 ATM will no longer be the leading technology of
broadband networking , according to Ovum, analysts in
telecommunications and information technology. Instead, development
will be driven by competitive factors including the adoption of TCP/IP
based applications which will allow a variety of alternative
approaches. The findings come in a new report from Ovum, The Future
Of Broadband Networking: ATM vs. TCP/IP.
|
|
|
|
|
| SUN and SGI/Cray get DOE ASCI programme grant
|
|
|
Sun Microsystems, has been awarded a four-year R & D
contract from the United States Department of Energy (DOE). This award,
with a value to Sun of $11 million , is a component of the Accelerated
Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) which supports the DOE Stockpile
Stewardship Program. Silicon Graphics/Cray Research has been awarded a
$5 million. DEC and IBM were also awarded a grant.
|
| Concurrent's LabVIEW Version 5.0 available
|
|
|
Concurrent's Version 5.0 of National Instruments' LabVIEW
graphical instrumentation software is now available on Concurrent's
full line of real-time Power Hawk computer systems. The
Power Hawk 640 is an SMP system that allows different LabVIEW threads
to run on up to 20 different processors
|
| US Department of Energy
nukes IBM and Digital
|
|
|
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has signed contracts with
IBM and Digital to develop technology for 30 to 100 Tflop/s
supercomputers. IBM expects a prototype on its RS/6000 SP supercomputer
in the year 2001. Digital expects this one year earlier on 256 Alpha
Clusters. The contracts are part of the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship
program to study and protect the nation's nuclear stockpile. President
Bill Clinton announced both contracts during a visit to Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico. SGI and Sun were also awarded grants.
|
| Mercury computers to be used in Canadian patrol aircraft
|
|
|
The Canadian company Array Systems Computing, has placed a $1.5 million order for 58 Mercury RACE computer
systems. The order is part of an Array Systems
contract with Lockheed Martin Canada to equip the Canadian Forces' 18 CP-140
Aurora Maritime Patrol Aircraft with signal processing systems for their surveillance missions.
|
| Nagano Olympic Winter Games Web site sets new world record
|
|
|
At the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games new Internet world records were set.
The Games' official Web site, powered by an IBM SP2, registered an unprecedented total of nearly 650 million
hits from around the world during the 16-day event, compared to 187 million for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Summer
Games. Altogether a total of more than 4.5 Tbytes of data were processed, an amount greater than all of the text
contained in the U.S. Library of Congress.
|
| Encore boosts Real-Time business
|
|
|
Encore Computer Corporation has decided to continue and
grow the company's core activity: Real-Time business. Encore has
elected to cease development of its Enterprise NT Cluster product line
in favour of increased development investment in its core Real-Time Unix
and Real-Time Windows NT products.
|
