| News digest September 2005 |
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HPCN industry |
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| Interview with Wolfgang Nagel, Director of the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) and Professor of Computer Architecture at the Dresden University of Technology. |
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In 1997, Wolfgang Nagel left Germany’s famed Juelich Research Center and took a position at Dresden University of Technology. In Dresden, located in the former eastern part of Germany, he has led the development of the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH), which now comprises a staff of more than 70 researchers, students and guests. The center was recently renamed to better reflect the integration of the HPC center (ZHR) and the university’s computing services center (URZ). There are also other changes in the works, including the installation of new computing systems and a next-generation release of VAMPIR, the flexible tool for tracing performance issues on parallel systems which Nagel and his group has been working on for nearly 10 years. The center conducts computational science research in biology, materials science and turbulence. Additionally, one team is involved in benchmarking, an important area as the ZIH has just procured a major new system. Members of the ZIH staff are also working on HPC performance analysis, modelling and optimization, furthering Nagel’s development of VAMPIR. Primeur recently caught up with Nagel for an interview about the current state of the ZIH, its future plans and HPC-related activities in Dresden.
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| The Center for Computation & Technology at LSU hires world-famous computing expert Thomas Sterling |
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The Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, at LSU has announced the hire of supercomputing expert Thomas Sterling. Sterling is leaving his position at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to continue his computing research in Louisiana. The computer scientist will arrive at the LSU campus on August 22, accepting a professorship in the LSU computer science department.
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| SRC Computers launches its next-generation reconfigurable high performance computing system |
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SRC Computers an expert in reconfigurable computing systems, has made available its SRC-7 general purpose system featuring the first reconfigurable processor with IEEE compliant floating point blocks and accompanying high bandwidth interconnect. The lack of dedicated low latency floating point capability with enough memory bandwidth to prevent stalling has historically been viewed as the last technical barrier to widespread adoption of general purpose reconfigurable computing. ance system on the market.
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| NERSC launches Linux Networx supercomputer into production |
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Linux Networx and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science announced today that DOE's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has accepted a 722-processor Linux Networx Evolocity cluster system for full production use by researchers across the nation.
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| Fujitsu Siemens Computers offers tailored CentricStor solution packages |
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With a variety of CentricStor models Fujitsu Siemens Computers is now opening the way for small companies, branch offices, and also low-end mainframe customers to enjoy the advantages of the leading virtual tape technology from which customers with large data centres are already benefiting.
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| Computational Materials Institute deploys world's fastest Windows cluster dedicated to computational materials science research |
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The Computational Materials Institute (CMI), a unit of the Cornell Theory Center (CTC), has deployed the world's fastest Windows-based high-performance computing cluster dedicated to basic research in computational materials science. The cluster has 17 Dell PowerEdge 1855 enclosures, each holding 10 blades. Each blade has two 3.6 GHz Xeon EM64T processors, 4 GB of RAM, and 292 GB disk. The nodes are connected via Giagabit Ethernet and a Force10 E12000 switch. The cluster is running Windows Server 2003 (SP1), Enterprise x64 Edition. Grants from the National Science Foundation and the Air force Office of Scientific Research provided the funding needed to secure this leading edge computing power.
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| IBM announces next generation silicon germanium technology |
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IBM has made available its fourth generation silicon germanium foundry technology, named 8HP with over 2X performance of the previous generation. The new 130 nanometer (nm) silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) foundry technology can reduce the cost of mobile consumer products, advance high-bandwidth wireless communications, and help enable innovative new applications such as collision-avoidance automobile radar.
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| Largest Cray XD1 supercomputer to date will be installed at the Naval Research Laboratory's D.C. facility |
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The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) facility in Washington, D.C., will be home to the largest Cray XD1 supercomputer ever installed. The NRL supercomputer will also employ the largest known number of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) of any system in the world. Equipped with 288 AMD Opteron Dual-Core processors and 144 Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs, the 24-chassis machine will provide peak performance of 2.5 Tflop/s.
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| European Union funds Rs. 3.5 Crore project for global Open Source research |
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Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Mumbai will be the Indian participant in the mammoth and first-of-its-kind 35 million rupees multi-country project called FLOSSWORLD supported by the European Union (EU) in the area of Open Source Software. This 2-year project involves 17 partner institutions across 12 countries worldwide, jointly receiving RS 3.5 crore from the EU's 6th Framework Research Programme. C-DAC's participation in the FLOSSWORLD project supported by NASSCOM, reinforces its strong commitment to Open Source Software as a major thrust area of research.
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| New Rice research system will feature a Cray XD1 supercomputer with 672 AMD Opteron cores |
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Rice University in Houston, Texas, has chosen the Cray XD1 supercomputer to power its new research computing system. The 28-chassis machine is the largest Cray XD1 system purchased to date. Equipped with 336 Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors (672 cores), the supercomputer will be used by Rice researchers for studies that include computer science, biophysics, computational mathematics, earth sciences and cognitive neuroscience.
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| SPEC seeks MPI applications for benchmark suite under development |
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The Standard Performance Evaluation Corp.'s High-Performance Group (SPEC/HPG) is seeking Message Passing Interface (MPI) applications for a new computer benchmarking suite scheduled for release in 2006.
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| Mellanox showcases Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition over InfiniBand |
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Mellanox Technologies announced InfiniBand is the only industry-standard, low-latency 20 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) fabric supported by Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition, scheduled to be available in the first half of 2006. InfiniBand's proven scalability and leading price/performance combined with Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition is designed to drive supercomputing into mainstream commercial applications including financial, clustered databases, engineering, life sciences and geosciences.
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| Brigham Young University installs six Dell supercomputing clusters |
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Brigham Young University (BYU) has installed six new Dell supercomputing clusters at its Provo, Utah campus, helping to enable students and faculty across the university to enhance research ranging from business and engineering to agriculture and physics.
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| Penguin Computing expands BladeRunner family of ultra-dense Linux servers with new 64-bit AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processor-based blades |
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Penguin Computing has introduced the BladeRunner 4130 and 4140 Linux blade servers, 64-bit versions of the industry's densest Linux blade server. The new AMD Opteron HE processor-based BladeRunner 4140 supports two single or dual core processors, while the 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based BladeRunner 4130 adds support for Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T). Both blade servers combine powerful processors with the industry proven, ultra-dense BladeRunner configuration for cost-effective datacenters and cluster applications.
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| New High Performance Computing Software Development Kit for AMD Opteron clusters includes compilers and tools from PathScale and Absoft |
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PathScale Inc. and Absoft Corporation have made available Absoft's new High Performance Computing Software Development Kit (HPC SDK) optimized for clusters based on AMD's 32- and 64-bit AMD Opteron processors running Linux and featuring top-performing Fortran and EKOPath C++ compilers from PathScale.
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| IBM, Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., and Toshiba unveil details of the Cell Microprocessor |
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IBM, Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. - Sony and SCE together referred to as "Sony Group" - and Toshiba have announced the release of key documents that describe technical details of the revolutionary Cell Broadband Engine architecture. Toshiba will release the documents once it completes its customer support structure.
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| World's first HyperTransport-enabled quad-socket AMD Opteron system board with lowest latency InfiniBand interconnect certified by PathScale and Supermicro |
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PathScale, developer of innovative software and hardware solutions to accelerate the performance and efficiency of Linux clusters, has certified a new four-socket system board from Supermicro Computer Inc. for use with its PathScale InfiniPath HTX InfiniBand Adapter. PathScale's certification process has validated the performance and reliability of the Supermicro H8QC8/E server board using a suite of well-known HPC applications. The Supermicro H8QC8/E and the PathScale InfiniPath interconnect were displayed this week at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.
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| New York University taps IBM supercomputer to help solve the mysteries of the sea |
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New York University (NYU) has installed and begun to make use of a new IBM eServer BladeCenter-based computing system capable of peak performance of 4.5 Tflop/s. According to the TOP500 List, NYU's supercomputer is the fastest in New York City and the 117th fastest supercomputer in the world.
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| Nottingham research sheds new light on how chemical reactions work |
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Research from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry has contributed to a breakthrough in the complex world of understanding how the quantum mechanics of chemical reactions work. By understanding chemical processes better chemists will be able to conduct experiments more quickly and accurately, and make new chemicals more cheaply and efficiently.
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| CEI uses commodity clusters at LLNL to shatter world graphics rendering record |
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CEI, a provider of engineering and scientific graphics software, shattered the previous record for graphics rendering speed during tests last week at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). CEI engineers and Dale Southard of LLNL conducted the tests on a Linux visualization cluster used to support National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) missions.
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| NASA relies on SGI technology in America's quest return to space |
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NASA centres from coast to coast are relying on technology from Silicon Graphics to help safely realize the agency's first space shuttle mission in two years. The anticipated July launch of Space Shuttle Discovery marks the genesis of a renewed commitment to space exploration in the United States - one aimed at returning man to the moon by 2020, and someday sending astronauts to Mars.
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| Xilinx embedded PowerPC reference design with Treck software delivers Gigabit Ethernet performance |
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Xilinx and Treck Incorporated have made available the Xilinx Gigabit System Reference Design (GSRD) with the Treck TCP/IP protocol stack. Leveraging the industry standard PowerPC processor embedded in the leading edge Xilinx Virtex-4 and Virtex-II Pro Platform FPGAs, the powerful combination of the Treck protocol software and Xilinx platform FPGA technology delivers TCP performance of over 910 Mbits transmit and over 400 Mbits receive, more than six times faster than any competing FPGA offering.
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| HP ranked no. 1 in worldwide revenue, market share for distributed performance and availability management software |
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HP is the worldwide leader in software license revenue and market share for distributed performance and availability management software for the third consecutive year, according to a recent IDC market report. According to the IDC study, HP worldwide distributed performance and availability management software license revenue grew by 15.8 percent in 2004, outpacing the overall one-year growth of 11.6 percent for the market category. HP maintained its first place ranking in worldwide market share with 24.1 percent, more than double the market share of each of the next two closest competitors.
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| ClusterVision relocates headquarters to Amsterdam |
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As a result of the continued growth, ClusterVision Headquarters are relocating to a larger, purpose built site within Amsterdam.
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| Bill Gates to deliver keynote at SC|05 Conference |
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Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, one of the most pivotal figures in computing history, will deliver the keynote address on Tuesday, November 15, at the SC|05 Supercomputer Conference in Seattle.
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| IBM announces TPC-C record performance |
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An IBM POWER5 processor-based eServer p5 570, running Linux has attained a milestone in computing history, soaring past other servers and setting a new world record for on-line transaction processing performance for 4-processor servers of 197,669 transactions per minute (tpmC) according to TPC. Until today, no Linux based server in history from IBM had claimed a top TPC-C mark.
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| IBM usupports Apache Geronimo |
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IBM will support services for Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Geronimo open source application server software.
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| IBM Enterprise Search Software to enable discovery and analysis of Information On Demand |
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IBM has introduced new software that can find information by analysing text within documents, web pages, problem reports, e-mail, and other unstructured content sources going beyond keyword searches to add additional understanding from the context of information.
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| New SGI 4-gigabit Fibre Channel storage infrastructure |
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SGI also announced the availability of new TP9700 features and additional 4-gigabit Fibre Channel connectivity products, which position SGI as the first storage vendor in the industry to offer a complete 4Gb/sec (4-gigabits per second) Fibre Channel infrastructure. The new offering delivers up to twice the speed of traditional Fibre Channel storage products.
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| Sun Microsystems announces alliance with VMware to deliver components of the virtual data center |
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Sun Microsystems Inc. has signed an alliance designed to deliver VMware's full line of server virtualization capabilities on Sun's Sun Fire x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers and the Sun StorEdge 6920 system, further supporting deployment of the virtual data center. In addition, Sun and VMware also signed a technology agreement to provide support for the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) as a guest OS on future VMware server and desktop products.
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| NERSC deploys the PathScale EKOPath Compiler Suite with new Linux Networx supercomputer cluster |
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The U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has deployed the PathScale EKOPath Compiler Suite for use by 2500 scientists throughout the US and internationally.
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| Gathering of 53 SOA experts predicts huge uptake in service oriented architectures by end of decade |
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The SOA Leaders Council, an industry body made up of experts on service oriented architectures (SOAs) predicts a bright future for the technology with IT infrastructures increasingly becoming SOA-enabled. However, it warns that skills shortages could act as a brake to its rapid rise and stresses that the IT industry needs to share knowledge in order for companies to learn from each other's successes and failures.
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| Nallatech adds Third Wave Solutions to Channel Partner Programme |
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Nallatech, a supplier of FPGA high-performance computing solutions, has added Third Wave Solutions to its Channel Partner Programme, representing the Mid-Atlantic region including Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and eastern West Virginia. Third Wave will sell Nallatech's FPGA solutions in these areas, concentrating on the military, government and communications industries.
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| CodeMesh announces beta version of JunC++Ion for Linux |
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CodeMesh Inc., a provider of solutions for integrating programming languages, has made available the beta version of JunC++ion for Linux. By utilizing its patented in-process technology for creating integration solutions, CodeMesh now helps Linux users significantly shorten development time, reduce maintenance costs and enable the efficient use of existing application investments.
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| Scali helps smooth management and installation of Lustre File System |
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Steffen Persvold, Technical Director at Scali, Americas presented at the Lustre User's Group Summer 2005 meeting on August 16, 2005 in Springfield, Ohio. Steffen Persvold discussed how data centre managers can simply the installation, verification and ongoing management of a Lustre File System environment using Scali Manage/Storage.
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| IBM debuts dual-core Intel-based workstation with server design |
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IBM has launched the IntelliStation M Pro 6218, a workstation utilizing a dual-core Intel processor built from the ground up with server design teams and rigorous xSeries Server Proven testing. IBM customers typically use IntelliStation workstations for critical business operations to facilitate tasks | | |
