Compaq Linux Solutions for the Enterprise

Munich 16 July 2001 Compaq now is extremely active to provide Linux solutions. It starts at the edge of the network and goes into the heart of the IT infrastructure. Examples are the Compaq iPAQ handheld devices, the Compaq Professional Workstations to market-leading, industry-standard Intel IA-32 based ProLiant servers and high-performance AlphaServer systems. Especially in Compaq's HPC (High-Performance Computing) world Linux is an important operating system. Now the company offers a broad spectrum of Linux-based platforms and offers its customers a solution that fits their needs. An other aspect is the certifying of platforms with major Linux distributors, the availability and the support. Compaq provides a global 24x7 support in Compaq call centres world-wide and professional services for IT assessment, architecture/design, implementation/integration and on-site management and training.

More customers deploy Linux on Compaq ProLiant than any other server in the world. Compaq ProLiant architecture for Linux delivers the foundation of e-business to customers with high availability, scalable clustering solutions, multi-system enterprise management tools and ultra-powerful density optimised servers. Compaq has developed a business plan around parallel processing and high performance computing applications to meet the needs of our customers expanding into parallel applications and high-end decision support environments.

Compaq HPC (High Performance Computing) focuses on Linux as the base operating system on Intel Pentium ystems. Compaq HPC started a series of partnerships revolving around Linux cluster solutions, middleware enablers, and industry-specific applications for Academic high performance computing, Financial, Petrochemical, and EDA industry segments, as well as general RandD support. This effort is distinct but complementary to High Performance Technical Computing (HPTC), an organisation that has been focused on Alpha solutions for both Tru64 UNIX and Linux.

Examples of HPC focus areas and applications:

  • academic high performance computing
  • financial services: risk management, portfolio optimisation,
  • bioinformatics: protein modelling, BLAST
  • computer graphics: Ray Tracing
  • electronic CAD: field programmable gate arrays (FPGA)
  • VLSI design: SPICE simulations combinatorial optimisation: simulated annealing
  • high energy physics
  • environmental studies

The clusters for these applications may range from 16 to 512 nodes - or far more. To manage the clusters, Compaq offers three different solutions:

Scyld Beowulf - started out of the research Beowulf project. It is the industrial successor to the open source Beowulf solution. It adds more management control and virtual memory features for general purpose clustering

Linux Networx Clusterworx - it integrates unique hardware and software into a well-managed compute cluster

San Diego Supercomputing Centre "ROCKS" Clustering Toolkit - easy to use, easy to install cluster manager for large scale clusters

For more information on Compaq's Linux initiatives, see http://www.compaq.com/linux.

Uwe Harms

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