Critical Software has released WMPI II for the Itanium 2 processor family, the first Message Passing Interface (MPI-2) implementation which runs on Windows clusters based on the Intel Itanium 2 architecture.

The Rocks development team at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is celebrating two milestones: passing the 50 teraflops mark in aggregate computing power, and the release of version 3.2 of the cluster computer management software suite.

University of Maine computer engineers and employees of Applied Thermal Sciences of Sanford, Maine have bragging rights in a recent announcement that the U.S. Army will create what may be the second most powerful computer in the world. The Army decision to build the machine known as the MACH 5 (Multiple Advanced Computers for Hypersonic, G5) is based in part on UMaine research funded by the Army to develop more powerful and less expensive computing technology for military research.

A new initiative for SC2004 is to build a High Performance Computing (HPC) storage capability to showcase HPC storage technologies (topologies, devices, interconnects). This initiative, termed StorCloud, will comprise state-of-the-art heterogeneous devices and technology to build a virtual on-site "storage on request" area network capability to support researchers and demonstrate high bandwidth applications at the conference.

Bull has set a world record by achieving the best performance in the 8-way server category, according to the Transaction Processing Council TPC-C benchmark: 175,366 transactions per minute (tpmC).

IBM has established the IBM eServer xSeries Taiwan Development Center (xTDC), the first such centre opened by IBM outside the United States. The xSeries Taiwan Development Center will play a key role in connecting local vendors with IBM's global resources for Intel-based server development.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has extended its range of thin client offerings with the new FUTRO S series. Taking up no more desk space than a medium-sized book (24.6 x 4.8 x 17.7 cm), these systems work with Transmeta processors. This means that despite having powerful graphics capabilities, they require only 25 watts, or 80 percent less power than consumed by the average PC.

Many of the early European IST Grid projects are now (nearly) finished. Of course, we are monitoring the project web sites, but they do not always provide up to date information. So we have to use personal contacts and look for demonstrations at events: demonstrations, of course, not presentations. At Heidelberg we saw a real demo of the OpenMolGrid project. Looked interesting enough to report in this week's Primeur. The latest round of European projects is now also known. A few weeks ago we did already report on a few of those projects. The European Commission is organising a day to introduce the new projects in September. Start memorizing the names of the new projects: NextGrid, Akogrimo, UniGrids, CoreGrid, Simdat, DataminingGrid, IntelliGrid, OntoGrid, K-WF Grid, Provenance, HPC4U, GridCoord. Difficult? Have a look at http://EnterTheGrid.com were we list all projects with short descriptions and links. We will update this with new information as it comes available. (AE)

The Economist has released a survey on the uptake of commercial Grid computing. See elsewhere in this issue. What I do like about it is that they not only asked US persons, but also asked Europeans and people from Asia. What I do not like about these types of surveys is that the quality depends on the selection of the respondents. For instance in this case, they had two persons from Government/Public sector in the original survey phase. In the second detailed interview phase, these two where again interviewed, although the only represent a small percentage of the 177 respondents. Many citations of these two persons are mentioned in the report. Nevertheless it makes interesting reading. (AE)

OpenMolGrid automates the workflow of 3-D selection of molecules with the use of Unicore Grid infrastructure

The "Economist Intelligence Unit" (EIU) branch of the magazine "The Economist", has published a study with the title "From grid to great? Grid computing's corporate prospects". The Oracle sponsored study published in June is based on a survey in of 177 senior executives on the topic of Grid computing and concludes that Grid computing is breaking out.

The German Grid project VIOLA (Vertically Integrated Optical test bed for Large Applications will be supported by the governement with 10.5 million Euro. Through the VIOLA project that is led by DFN, the German research network provider, a computer Grid will be developed to link research centre computers as well as to help generate new ideas for advanced applications and services. VIOLA will be a multi vendor and multi layer, integrated data and optical network. VIOLA will run from 2004-2007. The project has 10 partners, including research centres, universities, and industry. Initially it will run a 10 Gigabit Ethernet in North-Rhine Westfalia and Bavaria. The work will be done on four applications areas and there is one middleware work package. Unicore and MetaMPI are among the technologies deployed.

The European Commission has published a booklet called "Changing the way research is done - The user perspective on eInfrastructures". eInfrastructures includes both the high-speed research network in Europe, Geant and the Grid infrastructure. Although the book is dated December 2003, it has just become available recently. The booklet contains high-level, introductory articles about Grid applications, most FP5 projects, and a part on status of Geant and Grids. Each item is written by a researcher involved in the project or area. This leads to a large difference in quality: the worst are only quoting from their project proposal or describing their own contribution to the Grid as the evolution of Grid technology. Other items, for instance on the activities in Japan, the overview of test beds and most of the application stories are quit nice. Keeping that all in mind the booklet is interesting if you want to get fast an introductory overview of what is/was happening. Each item has a small photograph of the author(s). If you do not know those people, I can reassure you that in real live they are much nicer than the impression you could get from their photograph in the booklet which is availabe from the European Commission. ISBN 92-894-6592-1.

SeLeNe Grid Service architecture for Learning Objects

NEC Corporation has announced Grid middleware, which enables autonomous resource allocation of services in response to dynamic changes in service workloads. The middleware mainly focuses on commercial enterprise IT systems, e.g. data centres, consisting of several resources, such as servers, networks and services.

The CERN openlab for DataGrid applications, a partnership between CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and five leading IT companies – Enterasys Networks, HP, IBM, Intel and Oracle – has announced a series of server and storage technical results regarding the first global science Grid – the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid project, LCG. The announcement was made at the recent annual sponsors meeting of the CERN openlab.

Scali AS, a provider of high performance clustering solutions, has secured an additional $ 7.5 million in venture capital funding. New investor Atlas Venture led the round with participation from existing investor Four Seasons Venture. The new round of funding will be used to extend the company's presence in the US market, fund product development and continue to build relationships with key strategic partners such as Dell, HP and IBM. As part of the investment, Atlas Venture Senior Partner Alexander Bruehl will join the Scali board of directors.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has ordered a Cray X1 supercomputer and a Cray XD1 high-performance computing system. An air-cooled Cray X1 supercomputer will be installed in the third quarter at OSC's new data center facility in Springfield, Ohio. The system will support scientific researchers throughout Ohio and beyond, especially in the fields of chemistry, materials science and life science. A Cray XD1 system is also scheduled to be installed in the third quarter at OSC-Springfield. The Cray XD1 system will be used for scientific research and to exploit the system's reconfigurable computing capability.

GridIron Software, a developer of Grid computing solutions, has launched its Value Added Reseller (VAR) Programme for X-Factor by GridIron. The programme enables GridIron and its partners to support the strong initial demand for X-Factor, the productivity extension for Adobe After Effects Professional 6.5 that speeds the creation of motion graphics and effects for film, video, DVD and the Web.

EqualLogic Inc., a provider of iSCSI-based, self-managing networked storage solutions, has surpassed the 100th customer deployment of its award-winning PeerStorage Array 100E.