| Contents January 2007 |
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 | Focus - Do we need a European Grid Agency? |
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| Commercial exploitation of Grid technology requires a European Grid Agency |
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In a report published by the European Commission, called "Commercial Exploitation of Grid Technologies and Services", prepared by SCF Associates, it is recommended to form a European Grid Agency. The role of this agency would be to take primary responsability for all the legal and market support functions necessary to build a European Grid industry. According to the report, the European IT industry has different characteristics from those in other parts of the world. In Europe, a few larger integrators and many SME's dominate the industry, with large vendors being more or less absent. Building complex Grids also requires having good solutions to the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) problems. Current licence schemes vary, and it is not clear which scheme or schemes best fit a European Grid industry, although it should have some level of openness to it. The legal situation with software patents is also quite different here than in the USA. A big part of the report is devoted to analyse the IPR situation. A European Grid Agency should develop and support the creation and promotion of a common reference model and toolkit for commercial products. Is it all worth the while? Yes, the report forecasts the European Grid Market could value euro 9 billion in 2011.
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| Europe is leading in academic Grid funding, not in academic Grid computing |
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Pawel Plaszczak is heading Gridwisetech , one of the few SME's in Europe that are completeley focused on Grid computing. GridWise Pawel Plaszczak has worked both in Europe (CERN) and the USA. Gridwisetech is a vendor-independent expert in Grid technologies. The company serves corporations such as: Philips, BP, Ricoh, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, SAIC, USGS, MCNC, TRW Automotive and academic customers. Gridwisetech-operates with most of major Grid vendors including IBM, Sun, Platform, Cluster Resources, Univa, and Exludus, and although the company is located in Poland, its customers are almost exclusively outside the country. One of the recent successes of Gridwisetech is connecting Philips to the EGEE Grid. Thanks to this activity, the EGEE has the first real large industry customer. So one would expect he is in favour of a European Grid Agency that has a focus to help Grid computing SME's. Not so. Pawel Plaszczak does not see that the problem in Europe is that Grid computing software produced is not used in industry, but rather that the software, often produced in European projects, does not address real industry's needs. The idea of building the European Grid Agency seems to be an upside-down solution, against the rule of thumb in marketing which teaches: make what you can sell (instead of trying to sell what you can make).Read further...
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| The only way to avoid re-inventing wheels is forming a European Grid Agency |
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D-Grid director Wolfgang Gentzsch is active in Grid computing from the times when it did not even have that name. He worked both in industry and research, in Europe and the USA. He sees a possible European Grid agency as a useful entity to co-ordinate Grid activities in Europe. There are still many roadblocks, mainly legal, cultural, economical in nature that stop companies from deploying Grid computing. A focal initiative to bundle the many scattered experiences in Europe, is an almost natural next step.
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| Industry
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HPCN industry |
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| Indiana University powers high performance distributed cyberinfrastructure with Force10 Networks TeraScale E-Series |
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Indiana University (IU) has deployed Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers to build a distributed, flexible high performance cyberinfrastructure. In addition to IU’s AVIDD and Big Red supercomputer clusters, the cyberinfrastructure includes the university’s Data Capacitor, which provides researchers across the nation with a unique facility for temporary massive data storage.
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| SGI to outfit EPA's next generation of scientific research computing initiatives |
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected SGI to equip the next generation of the EPA's Scientific Research Computing initiatives. The $1.6 million technology and services contract involves high-performance, power-efficient SGI servers and storage solutions, and was announced after a detailed evaluation process.
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| European Cyber Infrastructure in the Making |
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CASPUR (Consorzio per le Applicazioni del Supercalcolo Per Università e Ricerca) hosted an excellent "Forward Look" workshop on quantum molecular sciences at the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei, whose famous past members include Galileo Galilei. This is part of the European Computational Science Forum: "The Lincei Initiative: from computers to scientific excellence”. The aim of "Forward Look" is to develop a vision on how computational sciences will evolve in the coming 10 to 20 years and create an infrastructure of support. (Chris Lazou)
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| 17th Machine Evaluation Workshop at Daresbury - Impact of multi-core Chips on Clusters |
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About 250 (about the same as last year) people attended the 17th machine evaluation workshop at CCLRC Daresbury Laboratories, UK. This excellent Workshop, in its seventeenth year, is a leading UK national event dedicated to distributed, high performance scientific computing. The principle objective is to encourage close contact between the research communities from the Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering and Materials Programmes of EPSRC and the major vendors of mid-range computing systems, workstations, servers, software and peripherals. An increase in academic participation reflected a growing participation from researchers from the other communities, notably from the Natural Environment (NERC) and Particle Physics & Astronomy (PPARC) Research Councils. (Chris Lazou)
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| Bull to supply the most powerful civil supercomputer in France to the CCRT, the Center for Research and Technology Computing |
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The Centre de Calcul Recherche et Technologie (CCRT), the Center for Research and Technology Computing in France, has awarded Bull the contract to build a supercomputer delivering in excess of 43 Tflop/s. The CCRT's supercomputer will be made available for the scientific and industrial communities to use in major areas of research, particularly aeronautical engineering, energy, life sciences and environmental research. In particular, the system will be used by the members of the CCRT, including the French Atomic Energy Authority (the CEA), Electricité de France (EDF) and three companies from the SAFRAN Group: SNECMA, Turbomeca and Techspace Aero.
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| Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to double performance on its "BigBen" Cray XT3 system |
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Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) will double the capacity of its 10 Tflop/s Cray XT3 system to over 21 teraflops by the end of this year. Nicknamed "BigBen", PSC's system was the first Cray XT3 supercomputer to be installed and became the leading performer among tightly coupled supercomputer architectures on the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid computing infrastructure. The upgrade is expected to significantly boost the TeraGrid's ability to support the most demanding, large-scale scientific applications - known as "capability" computing.
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| Astron and IBM team to help research the first origins of the Universe |
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ASTRON, an astronomy research organisation, has signed a new collaborative agreement with IBM focusing on the design, engineering and manufacturing of customized, high performance analogue and mixed signal processing chips. The high performance, low power usage customized chips will be used in thousands of antennas as part of ASTRON's project to build a new prototype radio telescope called SKADS/EMBRACE, which will be the precursor for the world’s largest radio astronomy telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope. Financial terms are not being disclosed.
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| Alchip unveils first Silicon success of the SING processor for world's fastest supercomputer developed by the University of Tokyo |
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In collaboration with the University of Tokyo and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Alchip Technologies, a fabless ASIC company, has achieved its first silicon success of the SING processor for GRAPE-DR, the next generation of the world's fastest supercomputers targeting 2000 trillion transactions per second (2PFLOPS). This chip features 512 CPUs on a single chip with over 60 million logic gates and 10 million bits of SRAM utilizing TSMC production-proven 90nm process and flip-chip package technology.
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| Deal concluded for first supercomputer at SA's Centre for High Performance Computing |
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The South African Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) has concluded a Rand 10 million contract with IBM, which will provide the technology to power the country's pioneering high performance computing (HPC) system for scientific research.
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| Ohio Supercomputer Center announces high performance computing partnership with Edison Welding Institute |
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Joining high performance computing (HPC) applications with small- and medium-sized companies is one step closer to reality as the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and the Edison Welding Institute (EWI) have signed a partnership agreement. As part of its innovative Blue Collar Computing initiative, OSC will provide remote portal access of HPC systems and software to EWI welding applications - a tremendous cost-saving resource that will reach engineers at over 200 companies.
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| Extreme Networks powers University of Illinois Chicago's winning entry for speed challenge at Supercomputing '06 |
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Providing high-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology that powers the world's most critical scientific research, Extreme Networks Inc.'s award-winning BlackDiamond Ethernet switch again provided robust Ethernet network connectivity to assist the winning entry for the S|C06 Bandwidth Challenge.
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| Fujitsu Siemens Computers and EMC deliver fundamental building block for enterprise SOA from SAP |
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Fujitsu Siemens Computers and EMC Corporation have integrated EMC networked storage systems and software with the next generation of Fujitsu Siemens Computers' FlexFrame for mySAP Business Suite. Aimed at reducing total cost of ownership of IT for enterprises, FlexFrame for mySAP Business Suite version 4.0 gives customers improved information management and protection while and delivering an adaptable and flexible computing infrastructure. FlexFrame is a cost-effective means for running Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) from SAP, with SAP NetWeaver as a technical foundation.
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| Supercomputing equipment to advance the frontiers of computational biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic |
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Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will continue to advance the frontiers of computational science with the help of IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer. Awarded under IBM's Shared University Research (SUR) programme, this Blue Gene will complement the $100 million partnership between Rensselaer, IBM, and New York state to create one of the world's most powerful university-based supercomputing centres.
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| CERT Supercomputing Centre launches as Middle East first |
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The Centre of Excellence for Applied Research and Training (CERT), the leading technology and research organisation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has launched the first On Demand Supercomputing Centre in the Middle East.
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| IBM posts double-digit revenue growth in external disk storage systems |
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IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker shows IBM's external disk storage revenue growing significantly faster than the overall storage marketplace for third quarter 2006, growing revenue 14.3 percent year-to-year, compared to the overall external disk storage marketplace, which grew at 9.9 percent. IBM increased its revenue share year-over-year, and according to IDC, IBM grew revenue faster than Dell, Hitachi, and HP, all of which lost revenue share.
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| Sun Microsystems powers Multimedia-on-Demand service for Chunghwa Telecom |
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Taiwan telecom giant Chunghwa Telecom has chosen its Sun Fire servers and the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) to power its Multimedia-on-Demand (MOD) back-end server platforms. This solution provides improved scalability and reliability for the MOD platform, allowing users to choose from a number of interactive services.
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| Telefonica Moviles Espana selects Sun Microsystems to roll out new services |
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Telefonica Moviles Espana selected Sun hardware, software and services to develop, implement and support the infrastructure used to provide its latest generation of customer services. Telefonica Moviles Espana is part of Telefonica Group, which operates in 15 countries on three continents and has a customer base that exceeds 98.5 million people. Telefonica Moviles Espana will use Sun Fire servers running the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) - the most advanced OS on the planet - and Sun Java Enterprise System, with support from Sun services.
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| Indiana Governor plans to move forward with privatization plan |
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Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has accepted a recommendation to move forward with a scaled back privatization of some Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) functions. The governor wants to award a 10 year, $1.16 billion contract to a partnership headed up by IBM and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. He says about one-third of FSSA's workers would remain with the state and make final public assistance eligibility determinations and the rest would go work for the partnership. According to Mitch Daniels IBM and its partners have vowed to create 1000 new jobs in the state linked to a new call centre, provide equipment to boost the capacity of Indiana University's "Big Red" supercomputer and provide other economic development benefits to the state. A public hearing on the proposed contract is set for December 8 in Indianapolis.
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| Force10 Networks TeraScale E-Series and S-Series integrated into IBM system cluster 1350 solution |
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IBM is integrating Force10 Networks' TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers and the S-Series family of data centre switches into its System Cluster 1350 to deliver the 10 Gigabit Ethernet density and scalability computing clients require for high performance workloads. The recently upgraded Cluster 1350 combines the industry leading Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet densities of the Force10 TeraScale E-Series and S-Series and IBM's extensive experience with clustered UNIX and LINUX computers in an integrated solution that enables clients to minimize complexity, deployment times and return on investment.
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| Naval Research Laboratory selects SGI systems for Large Data Joint Capability Technology Demonstration |
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The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., the premier scientific research lab within the Department of Defense, has selected SGI Altix servers and SGI InfiniteStorage solutions to help demonstrate the military utility of a highly scalable, rapid and secure integrated capability to retrieve, store and share massive amounts of information effectively between global users.
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| Irvin Aerospace leverages power of SGI Altix system to take engineering simulation and analysis to next level |
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Irvin Aerospace, specialized in the design, development, and manufacture of best-of-class parachutes, has enhanced its engineering simulation and analysis capabilities with the addition of SGI technology used to couple Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis to create a Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis capability.
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| Promising new memory chip technology demonstrated by IBM, Macronix & Qimonda joint research team |
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Scientists from IBM, Macronix and Qimonda have launced joint research results that give a major boost to a new type of computer memory with the potential to be the successor to flash memory chips, which are widely used in computers and consumer electronics like digital cameras and portable music players.
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| HP adds two systems to best-selling entry-level storage line-up |
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HP has introduced two direct-attached storage enclosures based on serial-attached SCSI (SAS) technology to extend the data performance, flexibility and reliability of its entry-level Modular Smart Array (MSA) family. Entry-level storage systems priced below $15,000 make up the fastest growing segment in the storage market, and HP recently shipped its 100,000th MSA unit - more entry-level disk arrays than any other vendor.
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| Dell expands disk storage line with first-to-market product |
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Dell has introduced the PowerVault MD3000, a versatile, direct-attached storage array delivering high performance and high availability for critical applications. The PowerVault MD3000 is the first external RAID SAS array from a tier-one storage system company.
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| Mercury Computer Systems announces strategic co-operation with the Institute of Medical Physics of Erlangen for Cell BE processor-based solutions |
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Mercury Computer Systems Inc. has signed a co-operation with the Institute of Medical Physics (IMP) of Erlangen, Germany, which is focused on the joint development and commercialization of medical imaging technology deployed on the Cell Broadband Engine (BE) processor.
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| First molecular simulation of a long DNA strand shows unexpected flexibility |
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It turns out that sequencing the human genome - determining the order of DNA building blocks - has not completely cracked the code of how DNA directs various cellular processes. In addition to the sequence of the base pairs, the instructions are in the packaging - how DNA is folded within a cell. Virginia Tech researchers used novel methodology and the university's System X supercomputer to carry out what is probably the first simulation that explores full range of motions of a DNA strand of 147 base pairs, the length that is required to form the fundamental unit of DNA packing in the living cells - the nucleosome. Contrary to a long-held belief that DNA is hard to bend, the simulation shows in crisp atomic detail that DNA is considerably more flexible than commonly thought.
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| IBM announces winners of Shared University Research awards |
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Ten universities spanning multiple geographies have been chosen as winners of the latest IBM Shared University Research (SUR) awards. For the first time, each of the universities will be using the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) technology to enable students and faculty to drive innovation, collaborate and foster skill development in the creation of digital media, software platform performance and medical imaging solutions.
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| SGI introduces easy-to-deploy RAID Array for networked storage |
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SGI has introduced the newest member of its storage portfolio, the SGI InfiniteStorage 220 RAID system. This storage solution enables data consolidation for organisations of any size, with fully integrated software and a flexible appliance-like design for simplified deployments.
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| Omega Technologies becomes strategic SGI Channel Partner for Province of Quebec |
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Omega Technologies, a Montreal-based high-performance and enterprise computing reseller, has joined the SGI Channel Connection programme as the SGI Elite Geo Channel Partner for the Province of Quebec.
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| IBM and top universities continue software Intellectual Property reform |
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IBM and seven leading U.S. universities have launched new open software research projects under a programme designed in conformance with the Open Collaboration Research Principles, a set of guidelines announced previously to help promote an open approach to overcome university-industry intellectual property challenges.
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| IBM and Intel initiative accelerates virtualization on multi-processor servers |
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IBM and Intel Corporation have joined in an initiative aimed at improving how IT managers select, deploy and measure virtualized server solutions for enterprise data centres. Virtualization technology, such as VMware Infrastructure, on Intel-based servers is becoming widely used in production environments and is increasing capturing mid-tier application workloads.
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| HP introduces industry's first blade workstation |
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HP has introduced the industry's first blade workstation solution which combines the benefits and security of a centralized data centre with workstation-class performance. Based on HP BladeSystem infrastructure, the HP ProLiant Blade Workstation Solution gives users the ability to quickly and seamlessly access workstation compute power from anywhere in the world using thin client devices or Microsoft Windows-based workstations, PCs and notebooks. This type of solution is ideal for customers in the financial trading, public sector, and manufacturing industries.
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| Sun expands System Packs offering with 15 new servers |
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Sun Microsystems has added 15 new systems to its Sun System Performance Packs offerings, including its x64 (x86, 64-bit) Sun Fire x4500 and X4600 servers and Sun Blade 8000 and 8000 P modular systems, which run the Solaris OS, Windows and Linux.
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| HP bridges gap between facilities and IT to solve data centre power and cooling challenges |
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HP has launched a new energy management system and key initiatives to bridge the gap between facilities and IT to help customers dramatically reduce data centre operating costs. Based on work from the past four years by HP Labs, the new energy management system, called HP Dynamic Smart Cooling, is designed to deliver 20 to 45 percent savings in cooling energy costs or allow additional equipment to be added to the data centre while keeping net power costs constant.
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| Mitrionics’ FPGA supercomputing platform at McGill University |
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Mitrionic., developer of Virtual Processor and software-centric Mitrion-C programming language for FPGA Supercomputing acceleration, announced that its Mitrion Platform has been used during the fall 2006 semester at McGill University to teach graduate level students parallel programming techniques for application acceleration utilizing FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays).
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| Bytemobile Inc. optimizes wireless freeways with IBM BladeCenter |
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Bytemobile Inc. has enhanced its existing hardware portfolio with the addition of IBM BladeCenter to help facilitate the deployment of data services for more than 70 mobile network operators worldwide, which serve nearly a billion wireless subscribers. The bladed platform will enable operators to cost-effectively utilize off-the-shelf computing to speed the delivery of data services, including full Internet access, to end users of mass-market mobile devices.
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| Industry
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The Grid |
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| Business and Grid for the Second EGEE User Forum |
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Distributed computing is coming of age and 2006 has seen a steady growth of Grid deployment especially in enterprises which are focusing more and more on having, using and obtaining value from Grids. The 2nd EGEE User Forum, which will be held in conjunction with OGF20 in Manchester, UK, from 9-11 May 2007 will provide a unique opportunity for businesses to meet with users of the largest multi-science Grid infrastructure and to introduce their experience into the scientific Grid field. This combined event will further strengthen the links between EGEE and the Open Grid Forum, bringing users and standards bodies together to ensure that the future of the Grid is complemented by the establishment of key standards. Deadline for paper submissions is January 30, 2007.
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| Commercial exploitation of Grid technology requires a European Grid Agency |
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In a report published by the European Commission, called "Commercial Exploitation of Grid Technologies and Services", prepared by SCF Associates, it is recommended to form a European Grid Agency. The role of this agency would be to take primary responsability for all the legal and market support functions necessary to build a European Grid industry. According to the report, the European IT industry has different characteristics from those in other parts of the world. In Europe, a few larger integrators and many SME's dominate the industry, with large vendors being more or less absent. Building complex Grids also requires having good solutions to the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) problems. Current licence schemes vary, and it is not clear which scheme or schemes best fit a European Grid industry, although it should have some level of openness to it. The legal situation with software patents is also quite different here than in the USA. A big part of the report is devoted to analyse the IPR situation. A European Grid Agency should develop and support the creation and promotion of a common reference model and toolkit for commercial products. Is it all worth the while? Yes, the report forecasts the European Grid Market could value euro 9 billion in 2011.
Read further... |
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| OGF meets eScience |
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A special workshop on Grid computing standards at the eScience2006 conference in Amsterdam last week, did give representatives of the Open Grid Forum (OGF) the opportunity to meet with the eScience delegates. At the workshop they gave an overview of the merger process the status of the standards and the plans for the future. On the other hand EGEE and OMII-UK provided feed back on the usage of standard based Grid comptuning software. In the lively discussion - after all it is Amsterdam also the conference delegates and members from the Dutch Gridforum.nl did gave their opinion on the direction that OGF should take.
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| European Grid market to grow to euro 9 billion in 2011 |
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In the recently published report called "Commercial Exploitation of Grid Technologies and Services", prepared by SCF Associates for the European Commission, it is forecasted the overall Grid computing market in Europe will grow to euro 9 billion in 2011. This seems to confirm findings by the report "Grid computing - a vertical market perspective 2006-2011" published in June by The Insight Research Corp., which estimated the European market in 2011 at USD 9,5 billion in 2011.
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| Europe is leading in academic Grid funding, not in academic Grid computing |
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Pawel Plaszczak is heading Gridwisetech , one of the few SME's in Europe that are completeley focused on Grid computing. GridWise Pawel Plaszczak has worked both in Europe (CERN) and the USA. Gridwisetech is a vendor-independent expert in Grid technologies. The company serves corporations such as: Philips, BP, Ricoh, CNN, Turner Broadcasting, SAIC, USGS, MCNC, TRW Automotive and academic customers. Gridwisetech-operates with most of major Grid vendors including IBM, Sun, Platform, Cluster Resources, Univa, and Exludus, and although the company is located in Poland, its customers are almost exclusively outside the country. One of the recent successes of Gridwisetech is connecting Philips to the EGEE Grid. Thanks to this activity, the EGEE has the first real large industry customer. So one would expect he is in favour of a European Grid Agency that has a focus to help Grid computing SME's. Not so. Pawel Plaszczak does not see that the problem in Europe is that Grid computing software produced is not used in industry, but rather that the software, often produced in European projects, does not address real industry's needs. The idea of building the European Grid Agency seems to be an upside-down solution, against the rule of thumb in marketing w | | |
