Fujitsu Siemens Computers announces its new hpcLine solution using the latest Intel Xeon processors, codenamed Nocona. The new Intel Xeon processor based hpcLine compute node includes support for new technologies including Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T), PCI Express and DDR 2 memory. With EM64T, users will be able to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications so that they can use 64-bit computing for applications that take benefit of bigger memory addressing capabilities while continuing using 32-bit codes. Based on the Intel server chipset E7520, this new Intel Xeon hpcLine compute node features an 800MHz front-side bus.

End of July ZAM installed a new software level on its high-performance IBM Regatta cluster, named Jump, which specifically updated the microcode for the Federation Switch, the operating system components and the communication libraries. The latency was reduced by 40%, the transfer rate improved by a factor of 2.3. ZAM measured with its benchmark suite an improvement of 10% without any changes when using several nodes.

PathScale has announced an engineering initiative with Sun Microsystems and AMD to jointly tune Sun's Opteron-based systems. This engineering collaboration enables customers to achieve greater system throughput, setting a new standard for application-based performance results on Sun's AMD Opteron-based systems running Linux OS. With the PathScale EKO Compilers, the new AMD Opteron-based servers and workstations from Sun posted record setting benchmarks.

ClearSpeed Technology plc has successfully raised £11.1 million through the issue of new ordinary shares in relation to the proposed application for admission to AIM ("the Placing”). KBC Peel Hunt Ltd is nominated adviser and broker to the company.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers has launched PRIMERGY BX600 4-way Server Blade which is ideal for power-hungry data centres. The new blade will be available in August and is currently the most compact SCSI server blade worldwide. At a starting price of 8000 euro (plus VAT), the BX600 is the ideal platform for power-hungry enterprise applications due to its high performance and flexibility.

Verari Systems will offer BladeRack blade server systems based on the Intel Xeon processor running at 3.60 GHz with 800 MHz system bus and Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T). Verari Systems' flexible and scalable platform-independent architecture ensures seamless incorporation of the latest in next generation high-performance technology.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has awarded a supercomputer cluster to the University of Toledo (UT) as part of its "Cluster Ohio” programme. Delivered on August 4 to UT's Department of Physics and Astronomy, the cluster was part of a larger system divided among institutions statewide.

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has awarded a supercomputer cluster to Case Western Reserve University as part of OSC's "Cluster Ohio" programme. Delivered on June 28 to Case's physics department, the cluster was part of a larger system divided among several institutions statewide.

IBM has introduced new "scale-out" IBM eServer xSeries servers that include additional , high-performance features inspired by IBM mainframes and supercomputers.

HP continued its no. 1 position in worldwide server shipments for the ninth consecutive quarter, according to second quarter calendar year 2004 figures released by IDC. HP shipped nearly twice the number of servers than any other company during the quarter. HP also was the no. 1 server vendor in factory revenue and servers shipped worldwide for the x86, Linux and Windows server markets.

In the second quarter of 2004 Sun outperformed all vendors in revenue market share growth on a quarter-to-quarter (Q/Q) basis including All OS, UNIX+Linux and UNIX, as reported in the 2Q04 Worldwide Server Database report by Gartner Dataquest, released this week.

In this interview with EnterTheGrid - Primeur Magazine Mark Linesch, the new Chair of the Global Grid Forum (GGF), gave his views on the directions the Global Grid Forum should take and how he sees his role in the overall process. Mark Linesch is new to GGF but has a lot of experience with emerging technologies. "I was elected to represent the entire community not just one faction", he says, commenting on the wide variety of communities active in GGF. For instance research and commercial people. Communities from the US, Europe and Asia. Mark Linesch would like to see a transparent process with tangible results created in an environment where there is a diversity of ideas in terms of internationality, in terms of different types of workloads: business versus research.

The three largest public universities in the US state of Michigan — Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University — are creating a very high-performance network with the capacity to meet their emerging and demanding research needs. The project is especially critical for faculty whose research collaborations require the ability to transmit massive amounts of data across the network.

The NEES System Integration team has released NEESgrid 3.0, the final version of the software that allows earthquake researchers to integrate physical experimentation and model-based simulation, computational analysis, and improved testing and validation of increasingly complex and comprehensive analytical and numerical models.

The US National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has joined the Globus Alliance, a consortium dedicated to the collaborative design, development, testing, and support of the open source Globus Toolkit. Globus provides key enabling software and services that let people share computing power, databases, and other tools securely online across corporate, institutional, and geographic boundaries without sacrificing local autonomy. It has been deployed broadly worldwide for both science and industry.

Could your home computer help cure Alzheimer's disease? Vijay Pande, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry and of structural biology at Stanford University, believes the answer may be yes. He's devised a way to identify potential drug compounds by using a network of more than 150,000 home computers and some innovative algorithms. He said the method accurately predicts how well molecules will bind to a given protein. Proteins are the ubiquitous workhorses of living systems and most diseases can be traced to protein malfunctions of one kind or another, so designing a compound that binds to a particular protein is an early step in drug development.

Virtual Compute Corporation will dedicate a portion of their supercomputing infrastructure to the biomedical segments of the "On-Demand" HPC industry. The new vCompute Bioinformatics Group has a very interesting approach to medical research by applying advanced supercomputing and data mining methodologies.

On August 26th, the climateprediction.net project began using the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) software platform, developed by scientists at the University of California in Berkeley.

Orion Multisystems inked agreements with Wolfram Research and The BioTeam to implement leading productivity software in Orion's new 96-node Deskside and 12-node Desktop Cluster high performance Workstations for technical computing.

NTT DATA Corporation, a United Devices licensed reseller in Japan, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan, is now offering the first pre-configured commercial Grid computing appliance. The product, 'cell computing BOX', is a turnkey system that consists of United Devices Grid MP software, server hardware, and database software as a plug-and-play package. 'Cell computing BOX' can also be purchased pre-bundled with applications for Life Sciences and other industries.

A report released by technology industry analyst company The 451 Group outlines what its analysts believe will be a rapid convergence within the enterprise IT arena of the network and application management market segments. Over the course of the next 18 months, 451 analysts believe, vendors ranging from Hewlett-Packard to Concord Communications will cumulatively spend at least $3-4 billion to acquire application performance monitoring firms, as well as a host of other network and application visualization and analytics technology companies. This new software industry M&A activity will follow more than $2 billion in deals already announced over the past two years in this segment, with the most recent being IBM's acquisition of Cyanea Systems.

Businesses have analysed TCO using a paradigm based on a set of assumptions such as perpetual processes, single delivery method and stovepipe solutions. According to a recent Yankee Group report "Analysing Utility Computing's Total Cost of Ownership", as IT transitions from a cost-centre model to a profit- or service-centre utility, the new paradigm must account for variations in duration, volumes and prices in business processes.

By connecting hundreds or even thousands of computers together to work on a single project, computer scientists are more frequently using a technique called Grid computing to do previously intractable computations. Computer scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently launched a new project to improve understanding of how computer Grids react to volatile conditions.

DataSynapse continues its reign as the fastest-growing provider of grid computing software, announcing its most significant quarter to date marked by a 300 percent increase in revenue from the first half of 2003. DataSynapse's year-to-date success has been driven by major customer wins at home and abroad; entry into new markets including energy, industrial and insurance; enhancements to its award-winning software, GridServer; and the launch of its patent-pending, rapid application assessment methodology, GRIDesign.

Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2) of Moorestown, New Jersey, is installing SKY Computer's high-performance embedded server in the U.S. Navy’s Tactical Environment Processor (TEP) programme.

From Mazatlán to Tucson, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is analysing moisture-laden skies through September as part of the largest study yet of the North American Monsoon. Each year the midsummer arrival of quenching rains plays a vital role in dryland farming, ranching, and wildfire control across the southwest United States and northwest Mexico. The monsoon may also hold useful clues for predicting summer rainfall elsewhere in the United States.

Some of the most computationally-intensive inner loops of GROMACS, a molecular dynamics software application, are now ported and off-loaded to ClearSpeed's PCI plug-in accelerator card.

Days and nights when the air temperature dips below freezing will become increasingly less common by the late 21st century across much of the world, according to a modelling study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The reduction in 24-hour periods with freezes (frost days) is projected to be most dramatic across the western parts of North America and Europe.

Silicon Graphics and Inte announced that Centre for Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS) - a premier research laboratory established by Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has invested in high performance computing technology and solutions powered by SGI and Intel to drive innovation in its weather forecasting and climate research programmes.

Callidus Software Inc., specialized in Enterprise Incentive Management (EIM), announced continued momentum in the financial services market, due to the increasing importance of optimized incentive compensation processes within financial institutions. Through its award-winning TrueComp software, Callidus processes millions of monthly transactions in incentive compensation payments for tens of thousands of payees within premier banking institutions, such as Citizens Bank, Key Bank, Bank of America and Development Bank of Singapore (DBS).

Distributed Computing expert Akamai Technologies Inc.'s global streaming network is being utilized by broadcasters throughout Europe for the delivery of live and archived footage of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, to be made available on the broadcasters' respective Web sites.

IBM has entered into an agreement to acquire Cyanea, a provider of software that monitors and manages the performance of Web-based business applications. Cyanea is a privately held company based in Oakland, California. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Linux Networx will support the new Intel Xeon processors with Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T). Earlier this year, Linux Networx was selected by the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Programme to build a 2,132-processor Evolocity II (E2) cluster for the Army Research Laboratory Major Shared Resource Center (ARL MSRC). When installed this fall, the ARL MSRC cluster will be one of the largest deployments of the Intel Xeon processor with Intel EM64T in a production environment.

Dot Hill will exhibit its SANnet II Linux-optimized storage solutions at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, August 3-5, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Dot Hill will display its latest additions to the SANnet II family, SANnet II SATA and SANnet II Blade Ultra 320, in its booth #773.

ECMWF is organizing an ECMWF HPN Workshop on 23 and 24 September 2004. The objective of the workshop will be to bring together users and vendors of high-performance networking and interconnect technologies and share thoughts on the technology deployments, trends and future directions with European focus.

F5 Networks Inc.'s BIG-IP product has been validated for use with Oracle Application Server 10g. When deployed with Oracle Application Server 10g, the BIG-IP product ensures fast delivery, always-on access, peak security and easy expansion for applications running on Oracle.