|
|
|
|
|
advertisement
September 1999
Primeur is a monthly Virtual Magazine on High Performance
Computing
and
Networking in Europe. It is produced by an
editorial
team
composed of professionals in publishing and HPCN. You can put the editorial
team to
work as well. Read about our services and
advertising
opportunities
and find out about the friendly
rates
.
advertisement
Breaking news
- just a click away:
From TOP500 to petaflops
-
all has been
discussed at Supercomputer '99
Two Primeur issues have been published
with the
latest HPCN news from the Mannheim Supercomputer Seminar.
Read the
latest
news on the TOP500, an update on all HPC vendors,
"Building a
Petaflop
computer is not that difficult" a lecture by Steven
Wallach,
and "The new
role of supercomputing centers" a lecture by Horst Simon
and
the latest
news on Tera, SUN, HP and the other supercomputing
vendors.
June 10, 1999 issue
June 12, 1999 issue
|
|
|
|
 |
Media and visualisation
|
|
|
Linux
|
|
|
Java
|
|
|
HPCN industry
|
|
|
Cluster computing
|
|
|
Applications
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Netherlands
|
|
|
Sweden
|
|
|
Norway
|
|
|
Germany
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| National Cancer Institute acquires
SGI supercomputer to aid cancer research
|
|
The US
National Cancer Institute (NCI) will acquire a Cray SV1
supercomputer to help NCI scientists accelerate research into the causes and
treatments for life-threatening diseases such as cancer, AIDS and Alzheimer's
disease.
|
| NCAR installs .2 Tflop/s IBM SP
|
|
|
The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) took delivery
of one
of the world's most powerful supercomputers, an IBM RS/6000 SP system that will
accelerate researchers' abilities to simulate global climate patterns and
determine mankind's impact on them.The new RS/6000 SP system contains 160 dual processor nodes with 160 gigabytes
of memory and 2.5 terabytes of disk space. It offers a peak speed of 204
Gflop/s more than doubling the peak capacity of NCAR's current computing
center.
|
| U.S. Army
installs 512-processor Cray T3E-1200E
|
|
|
The U.S. Department of Defense Modernization Program has replaced its 332-processor
Cray T3E-900
system located at the Army
Corps of Engineers with a 512-processor Cray
T3E-1200E
supercomputer. The new system
will be used to improve the efficiency of plow blades used to clear land mines
and model the movement of contaminants through different soils.
|
| U.S. buys back supercomputer
|
|
|
The Energy Department's Sandia National
Laboratory last week bought back a supercomputer it had sold as
surplus to Korber Jiang, a Chinese citizen who is the principle of
EHI Group USA and exports American goods to his home country.
|
|
|
|
|
| Swiss SuSe Supercomputer Site
|
|
|
Last month, there was a
large event in Switzerland, were a 108 processor Alpha cluster, ran some 32 Gflop/s
on a matrix solver for a matrix of size 50,000.
Network was
not running at full speed because of Linux Network driver problems.
The system ran the SuSE Linux 6.1 Alpha operating system.
As web site, they choose:
http://www.supercomputer.ch
with music and
nice design on the homepage, and the real computing
benchmarks on a
gray simple silent
page.
|
|
|
| Multigrid Course - Introduction to Standard Methods
|
|
|
A Multigrid Course - Introduction to Standard Methods will be held
19. - 21. November 1999, St. Augustin, Germany, and is organised by GMD
At the end of the course even beginners without numerical experience will be able to write standard MG programs for model problems. This is possible by an appropriate mixture of heuristics and exactness combined with theory and practice. Everybody who is interested in numerical methods may use this course to start with multilevel algorithms. Students with mathematical or technical interest from universities and Fachhochschulen are encouraged to visit the course.
|
|
|
| Veritas opens new data processing center in Stavanger
|
|
|
Veritas DGC opened
its newest data processing centre in
Stavanger, Norway. The new center will perform both 2D and 3D data processing services.
Equipped with Hewlett-Packard C-class workstation technology, the new
centre is tightly integrated via a fast network to Veritas' NEC SX-4
supercomputers in Crawley, U.K., Houston, U.S.A., and Singapore. These
powerful resources enable the new centre to offer enhanced services
such as depth migration, velocity model building, AVO processing,
modeling and inversion.
|
|
|
| Simulation and Visualisation on the Grid - call for papers
|
|
|
The Swedish Center for Parallel Computers (PDC) invites you to the annual
December conference on parallel and high-performance computing. This
year's theme, "Simulation and Visualization on the Grid," marks the
importance of simulation, visualization, and the broad array of
networked resources available today in high-performance computing. Papers can be submitted until October 1st.
|
| Third Robot World Cup
prepares for
disasters
|
|
|
The Third Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, RoboCup-99 Stockholm, is being held July 27 - August 6, 1999 in Stockholm, Sweden. Teams of five robots play a tournament. In order for a team of robot agents to actually play a soccer game, different technologies must be incorporated, including design principles of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, sensor-fusion, and learning.
When autonomous cooperating robots function well, they can be applied in disaster areas, for instance after an earth quake, or to explore - yes you guessed right - Mars or one of the other planets.
|
|
|
| NLR installs NEC SX-5 - Fastest supercomputer in the Netherlands
|
|
|
The National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) in the Netherlands, has installed an NEC SX-5/8 supercomputer with
64 GBytes of main memory and 64 GFlop/s of peak performance. The estimated position in the famous TOP 500 list is in the second half of the first 100 and this assures NLR has
the fastest supercomputer in the Netherlands. Acceptance testing started during the first week in August. The NEC SX-5 will
replace the current SX-4 system, used for advanced engineering support in aerospace
and related fields.
|
|
|
|
|
| Scientific Centres in Russia and Ukraine get 20 million euro from EC
|
|
|
The International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC) in Moscow is to receive 17 million euro in funding from the European Union in 1999.
The centre,
supported by the European Union (EU), the United States, Japan and Russia, aims to redirect the talents of weapons scientists from the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union (NIS) and Mongolia for peaceful purposes. A comparable centre in the
Ukraine gets 3 million euro.
|
| EC receives 2500 IT research proposals
|
|
|
More than 2500 proposals have been received following the IST programme's first call which closed on 16 June 1999. The Commission has funds for roughly one sixth of these proposals, with a total of 800 million euro set aside for the first call.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| IBM reveales sharks storage systems to Australian market
|
|
|
IBM
unveiled its plans to bite off huge chunks of
Australia's high-end
computer storagemarket previously ceded to storage specialists outfits such as EMC. The new
ESS boxes, part of IBM's "Seascape"
family of products,
can hold from 420
gigabytes up to 11 terabytes of data, eclipsing EMC's top 9-terabyte systems.
They will work with all enterprise computing platforms, including S/390, Unix,
NT and AS/400.
|
| SDSC'S NBCR project hosts BioSync Web Site
|
|
|
The US National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health has funded the National Biomedical Computation Resource (NBCR) at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to develop a Web site for BioSync, the Structural Biology Synchrotron Users Organization. The site began operating this week
as a portal for investigators planning visits to synchrotron facilities and as a central resource for researchers in structural biology seeking information about such facilities. The site was announced today at the annual meeting of the International Union of Crystallography in Glasgow, Scotland, by Janet L. Smith of Purdue University, who chairs BioSync. The members of BioSync include about 500 leaders of research groups in structural biology.
|
| Sun Starfire posts SAP record
|
|
|
Sun Microsystem
has beaten the previous results in the SAP
Retail
Standard Application Benchmark test. The Sun Enterprise
Starfire
server
processed
2,412,000 point-of-sale
data line items per hour, and reached almost twice the performance
results of the nearest test. The closest result was 1,345,000
point-of-sale data line items processed per hour in November
1998.
|
| Sybase on Origin 2000 better supported
|
|
|
Sybase,
and SGI inked a multi-year sales, marketing and engineering agreement
focused on the delivery of packaged data warehouse solutions tailored for
specific industries. Through this collaboration, organizations in financial
services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications will have access
to risk analysis and customer relationship management solutions based
on Sybase's Industry Warehouse Studio (IWS) hosted on SGI's high-performance
Origin servers.
|
|
|
| Multi-platform MPI from Aachen publicly available
|
|
|
The University of Aachen
announced the first release
of
a multi-platfom MPI-1 called MP-MPICH.
It is based on the standard MPICH distribution.
|
| Advanced Cluster Computing Consortium
established at Cornell
supercomputer centre
|
|
|
The
Cornell Theory Centre (CTC) has established the Advanced Cluster Computing Consortium (AC3) - a research and IT service consortium for business, higher-education, and government agencies interested in the effective planning, implementation, and performance of commodity-based systems, software, and tools.
|
| Cornell Installs 256-processor Dell/Intel Cluster
|
|
|
Cornell University installed a 256-processor cluster at the Cornell Theory
Center (CTC). The system consists of 64 Dell PowerEdge
servers, each with
four Intel Pentium
III Xeon
500 Mhz processors and running the
NT
operating system. Each system has 2 MByte of Level 2 cache per
processor, 4 GBye RAM and 54 GByte disc. The primary cluster interconnect is
provided by Giganet, Inc. Dubbed AC3 Velocity, the cluster will serve as a
production high-performance computing resource for CTC's research community and the Advanced Cluster Computing Consortium (AC3).
|
| SGI introduces 8-way Intel based servers with Linux and NT
|
|
|
SGI
introduced the
1000 server family
based on the 32-bit Intel
architecture. With models running the SGI Linux Environment and
Windows NT
operating systems,
the SGI 1000 server family will include products ranging from two-way
rack-optimized servers, to four-way workgroup and application servers, to
eight-way database servers.
SGI also introduced
the
1400L
and
1400M four-way servers that
support SGI Linux and Windows NT respectively.
|
| Swedisch National Supercomputer Centre (NSC) goes Banana
|
|
|
Swedisch supercomputer centre NSC has installed an
experimental system, a 16-processor
Beowulf PC cluster, named Banana.
|
| Workshop PC Clusters for Scientific and Industrial Applications
|
|
|
On September 14-15, GMD and NEC will organise a two day
workshop on PC clusters for sceintific and industrial applications.
Among the projects presented, are the largest European clusters: the
Swiss TX, the Dutch DAS
and the Paderborn SCI cluster. The topics of this workshop span the whole range of modern cluster technology, from small units used in university or industrial projects, through servers in compute center environments, to the high-end teraflop clusters. Emphasis is laid on efficient interconnect solutions, and on comfortable and reliable software environments.
|
| ParInt1.0 numerical software released
|
|
|
The ParInt Research Project of Western Michigan University and
Washington State University announced the first
formal release of their software, ParInt1.0.This release incorporates a set of techniques for numerically solving multivariate integration problems.
The algorithm incorporates parallel globally adaptive integration, with each processor storing its own priority queue of subproblems and performing scheduler-based local load balancing.
|
| 128-Processor Linux Cluster at the Ohio Supercomputer
Center
|
|
|
SGI will install the company's first 128-processor Linux cluster at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC). Ohio scientists, educators and engineers can begin to use the state's largest Beowulf cluster as a starting point into scalable high-performance computing.
|
| Los Alamos builds
supercomputer
network with ultra-fast 3Com Gigabit Ethernet switches
|
|
|
Los Alamos National
Laboratory
is using 3Com Gigabit Ethernet switches in
its Avalon
supercomputer. This device, which is among the most powerful computers in the world, was built in-house using off-the-shelf components from 3Com and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), now
Compaq. As a result, Avalon costs only about euro 275,000. In addition, the
laboratory's Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS) has upgraded its local
area network (LAN) using 3Com Gigabit Ethernet systems. With 70 nodes, Avalon reached
speeds of 19.2 Gflop/s.
|
| Giganet demonstrates new scalable Linux cluster running MPI
|
|
|
Giganet,
demonstrated the company's new cLAN for Linux products as part of the
first native VI (Virtual Interface) Linux cluster. The demonstration,
showcased at the LinuxWorld Conference
highlights cLAN's
ability to provide a high performance,
server-to-server cluster area network among Linux systems, enabling new
levels of scalability for parallel applications. The demo configuration consists of a multi-node cluster area network of
Linux systems connected with cLAN and running MPI Software Technology's
MPI/Pro message passing middleware.
|
| Sandia Lab builds an cluster out of nearly 1400 Compaq Alpha processors.
|
|
|
Beneath its number 1 of the Top500 machines, the Intel-based ASCI-Red, it develops in the Cplant project a large-scale, massively parallel computing resource from a cluster of commodity computing and networking components for the company's mission-critical applications. Compaq provides the nearly 1400 different, clustered workstations, 16 AlphaServer DS20 and four AlphaServer 1200 with a three terabyte StorageWorks solution. The peak performance of the Alpha processers sums up to more than 1.1 TFlop/s.
There is a new order for 800 Alpha XP1000 workstations.
|
|
|
| SGI posts small net profit
|
|
|
SGI announced its results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended June 30,
1999.
Revenue for the fourth quarter was $829 million, compared with $774
million in the same quarter a year ago. The company reported a net profit for
the fourth quarter, including the company's gain on the secondary offering of
shares of its MIPS Technologies subsidiary, of $158 million. Excluding the MIPS gain, the company's net income would have been $22
million.
|
| Tera
completes design of new MTA chip
|
|
|
Tera completed the
development phase
of its CMOS MultiThreaded Architecture (MTA) microprocessor chip.
The chip's design has been completed and sent to the fabricator, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Delivery of the new 64-bit microprocessor parts is expected later this quarter.
|
| Sun Starfire scores on Red-brick suite
|
|
|
The Sun Enterprise
10000
Starfire
server achieved a new record on the Informix Proof of
Performance and Scalability (POPS) test. The test is designed to
to measure the performance and scalability of Informix Red Brick
Warehouse in a true retail environment. As further proof of the
global reach in the retail market, this test was conducted at
Sun's Asia Pacific Benchmark Centre in Toyko, Japan.
|
| Sound success for free SUN Solaris shipment
|
|
|
The Free Solaris Program has shipped more than 100,000 copies of the Solaris Operating Environment during the first nine months.
Sun also announced that membership in the Solaris Developer Connection has increased more than 200 percent with Windows and Linux developers making up the majority of new Free Solaris licensees.
|
| SCO and Siemens sign new agreement for UnixWare 7
|
|
|
SCO
announced an agreement with Siemens to package the
UnixWare 7 operating system with Siemens' HICOM 300 E family of enterprise
communications servers.
Siemens said high reliability was the main factor in its decision to use
UnixWare 7 as operating system in the HICOM 300E's Administration and Data
Processor.
By combining the proven reliability of UnixWare 7 with the high
performance of the HICOM line, Siemens sets a new standard for real-time
communications.
|
| NEC and SGI to cooperate in Japan on supercomputer sales
|
|
|
NEC Corporation and SGI
Japan, Ltd.
have signed a memorandum of understanding
for the sales of supercomputers in the high performance computer (HPC) market in Japan. Under the agreement, NEC will offer Origon 200 servers, and SGI will offer SX-5 machines to customers.
In this fiscal year's Japanese government procurement, NEC offered its SX-5 Series with SGI's Origin 2000 for Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, and SGI Japan offered SGI's Origin 2000 with NEC's SX-5 Series for Tokyo Institute of Technology Computer Center.
|
| Cray for sale
|
|
|
As part of its major restructuring, SGI puts all its Cray supercomputer developments in a separate business unit. SGI said it is in
active discussions with other companies to assume the operation of the Cray
business through a partnership or other transaction. The Cray business unit, based in Chippewa Falls
and Eagan,
will be
responsible for the Cray T90, the new
Cray SV1
and the next-generation
Cray SV2
vector supercomputer products,
along with the Cray T3E scalable
parallel system.
|
| EMC acquires Data General for euro 1.1 Billion
|
|
|
High-end data storage leader
EMC Corp
expanded
its
storage business with a deal to buy Data General
for approximately
euro 1.1 billion in stock. The sales follows the recent announcements of IBM, who is agresivelly entering the mid-end
and high-end storage
market.
|
| American Megatrends ships High Performance RAID controllers
|
|
|
American Megatrends Inc. (AMI),
announced its new
family of MegaRAID
controllers, fulfilling the needs of the largest OEMs to
the smallest system integrators. AMI's high-end enterprise-level RAID controllers feature multi-channel PCI RAID
solutions for dual, quad and eight-way servers.
Powered by advanced Intel RISC-based processors, each MegaRAID controller
also comes with complete RAID configuration and management software, and an
extensive suite of OS drivers including: Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000,
Novell NetWare, SCO UNIX, UNIXWare, SMP, DOS, Solaris and
|
| Dataram doubles the maximum memory of Sun Enterprise Servers
|
|
|
Dataram
announced
a 2 GByte memory option for Sun Microsystems' 3000-6500
Enterprise-class servers. This
doubles the maximum memory size of Sun's
flagship server line with capacities now available up to 60 GByte in the Enterprise 6500. The DRS702/2GB memory option is manufactured exclusively by Dataram. By
contrast, Sun's largest Enterprise memory option, the X7023A, is 1 GByte capacity.
|
| IBM unveils next-generation
Power4 CPU
|
|
|
A team
of processor designers from
IBM 's server group will detailed the
Power4 CPU at the Hot Chips conference, Electronic Engineering Times
reported. The Power4 will be used in both
the AS400 and RS6000 system families, which are planned to hit the market in
2001. The Power4 is the first IBM processor design to include two processors and an
L2 cache on the same die, taking advantage of the transistor densities possible
with 0.18-micron design rules.
|
| Tera machine accepted at SDSC
|
|
|
Tera's eight-processor Multithreaded Architecture (MTA) supercomputer has
passed the full suite of acceptance tests at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).
|
|
|
| SUN plans new Java processor
|
|
|
Sun Microsystems has plans for a new family of microprocessors designed to
run high-bandwidth, multimedia applications on myriad machines, ranging from
interactive toys to servers:
The Microprocessor Architecture for Java Computing, or MAJC.
|
| Java 3D API on HP-UX
|
|
|
Sun
signed a licensing agreement with Hewlett-Packard
to port Java 3D
technology to HP-UX, bringing the API one
step closer to platform ubiquity.
The
Java 3D API, released in December
'98
includes
3D programming features and cross-platform
functionality.
The Java 3D API is used by application developers in
fields as diverse as MCAD, scientific visualization and gaming.
|
|
|
| TheLinuxStore.com offers Linux Alpha Solutions from API
|
|
|
TheLinux
Store announced a distribution agreement with Alpha
Processor Inc., (API), a provider of
fast 64-bit microprocessor and related technologies.
Under this agreement, API's next-generation motherboards, based on
Alpha processors, will be made available through
TheLinuxStore.com
the company's e-commerce storefront.
|
| IBM launches worldwide service and support to Netfinity running Linux
|
|
|
IBM
announced worldwide support and expanded offerings for customers running Linux, including support at no extra charge during the 90-day startup period, for all major versions of Linux running on Netfinity servers.
|
| SGI
to support Redhat Linux
|
|
|
SGI
and
Red Hat agreed
to provide Red Hat
Linux on SGI's products based on the
Inte
microprocessor architecture. Under this license, SGI will install
and distribute the SGI
Linux
Environment with Red Hat Linux on a number of the company's new and future
products.
|
| NEC's PSUITE also for Linux
|
|
|
NEC announced that PSUITE, the integrated development environment for the SX-4 and SX-5 Series Supercomputer families, will soon be released for Redhat Linux PC environments.
PSUITE includes SX Cross compilers, project management utilities, and performance analysis and tuning utilities.
|
| openUTM and openFT
from Siemens now also available on Linux
|
|
|
Siemens is now also offering the software products "openUTM" and "openFT" under Linux. OpenUTM is a service-proven universal transaction monitor which is available on various platforms and is used above all in the high-end sector on a large number of networked servers and up to 10000 clients. The file-transfer software openFT - which has been specially optimized to transport files automatically, securely and at low cost over heterogeneous platforms and networks - can also be used on Linux.
|
| Alias Wavefront to Offer Rendering on Linux
|
|
|
Alias|Wavefront
plans to create Red Hat
Linux
V6
versions of its award-winning Maya
Batch Renderer and Maya
Composer
Renderer for Intel
IA-32 processor-based computers. Alias|Wavefront is
providing Linux
operating system compatible rendering software products so
that its customers will be able to take advantage of the increasingly popular
Linux operating system on
Intel processor-based hardware.
|
| IMSL
C Numerical Library
ported to Linux
|
|
|
Visual Numerics
has ported its IMSL
C Numerical Library (CNL) to Version 5.2 of the RedHat Linux operating
system.
|
| Linux support
for Fujitsu teamservers
|
|
|
Amdahl
will provide full enterprise-class support for
the Linux operating system on the
Fujitsu
teamservers. Amdahl support of Linux includes factory installation of the Linux
operating system on Fujitsu single and dual Pentium III processor model
teamservers; 24 x 7 telephone assistance; on-site hardware
support with up to 2 hours targeted response; and
setup and customization of Linux and associated open source products
such as the Apache web server.
|
| Penguin introduces AMD processor based Linux system
|
|
|
Some people wispher the nice
little
penguin on the
logo is the real reason behind the success of Linux. A new company, called Penguin computing now tries to cash in on that success. The company introduced its
"King
Series" of computers running with the seventh generation AMD Athlon
processor. The AMD Athlon processor was announced earlier this week, and
Penguin Computing is the first company to configure it into a Linux machine.
Penguin Computing plans to ship its new series primarily to its enterprise
clients.
|
| Trillian port of Linux onto
IA-64 architecture
completed
|
|
|
The
Trillian project team announced that the port of Linux to Intel's
forthcoming IA-64 architecture is up and running on the Intel IA-64
software development environment.
Formed earlier this year, the Trillian project includes Cygnus
Solutions, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, SGI and VA Linux Systems and
represents a
major effort by the server and workstation industry
to support an OpenSource project of this depth and scale. Other major
contributors are expected to join the project.
|
| IBM ports SAP onto Netfinity with Linux
|
|
|
IBM t is cooperating with German software firm SAP AG to optimize a Linux
version of the
business application SAP R/3 for Netfinity
servers. IBM also announced the opening of LinuxLab with SAP, a newdevelopment center in Germany.
IBM and SAP are working together to optimize SAP R/3 for Netfinity servers through Linux Lab, an outgrowth of IBM's global International Competency Centers.
|
|
|
| nCUBE and DemandVideo Form Partnership
|
|
|
nCUBE, formed a
partnership with DemandVideo to provide reliable, high-throughput digital
video to new broadband network operators nationwide.
Under a formal
partnership agreement, the two companies will share technical expertise and
nCUBE will provide video servers for DemandVideo's video services.
|
| New browser plug-in Webvue 3D for real-time animation
|
|
|
Giant Studios, the
fast-track animation consortium, announced the availability of its new
Internet browser plugin, WebVue 3D. The new software breaks the barrier
of real-time interactivity in the transmission and viewing of animation
data and imagery.
|
| Fraunhofer CRCG and USA video interactive establish
joint marketing agreement
|
|
|
The Fraunhofer
Centre for Research in Computer Graphics
and USA Video Interactive
have agreed to jointly develop and market
"distance learning systems" for use in higher education and other
applications. CRCG is a division of the German Fraunhofer- Gesellschaft.
The agreement provides that Fraunhofer's Modular Training System and USA
Video Interactive's Video-on-Demand
and Wavelet compression
technologies will be integrated for Intranet, Internet and other
applications for distance education, career development, life-long
learning, and corporate training.
|
| New UNICA service uniquely customizes 1.5 Terabytes of Motion Capture Data
|
|
|
Motek Motion Technology
announced UNICA: the first service for
Web-based access to motion capture data.
UNICA is the first Web-based solution for deploying professionally
captured movement in mainstream creative projects at mainstream pricing.
Motek claims
UNICA will provide cost savings of up to 10X over conventional pricing
models for data of this quality.
UNICA motion capture data can be exported
into a wide range of professional 3D packages, including AVID
Softimage and Discree
3D Studio MAC. Amsterdam based Motek has recently opened offices in Manchester, NH USA.
|
| Toy Story 2 to be rendered
by Pixar on Sun systems
|
|
|
Pixar Animation
Studios is using 120 Sun
Enterprise 4500
Servers and 4.5 terabytes
of
Sun StorEdge disk storage arrays
to render Toy Story 2, the sequel
to its 1995 blockbuster due to be released this Thanksgiving under
Pixar's partnership with Walt Disney Pictures. "Toy Story 2" is Pixar's
third feature film, and is the studio's most demanding film yet in terms
of rendering requirements
|
| Star Wars: Episode 1 "The Phantom Menace" rendered on SGI
|
|
|
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucas Digital Ltd. LLC,
used SGI
visual workstations and servers to bring digital characters to
life, create stunning visual effects and store over 1,950 effects shots for
Star Wars: Episode I "The Phantom Menace."
The film is distributed by
Twentieth Century Fox. More than 500 out of ILM's
1,000 SGI processors were used for rendering.
|
| SGI's new Virtual Reality strategy
|
|
|
SGI a new strategy to make immersive group visualization solutions
pervasive across many industries by offering cost-effective, out-of-the-box
virtual reality (VR) solutions in addition to customized solutions. As part of
its strategy, SGI will resell Fakespace immersive displays directly to
its customers. With the introduction of the
SGI
Reality
Center
1000D
and 2000D desks, SGI will offer the industry's first integrated virtual reality
solutions available from a single computer company. In addition, the company
announced its intent to offer an SGI
product-branded, flat-screen wall
display, scheduled to be available in early 2000.
|
|
|
|
|
| Web hosting company installs SP2 supercomputer
|
|
|
US based ValueWeb
serves more than 30,000 Web sites for customers in more
than 100 countries, and, as one of only five members of Network
Solutions' Alliance Program, which facilitates the offering of premium
domain name registration services, has been growing by more than 3,000
domains a month recently.
ValueWeb is installing an IBM RS/6000 SP2 supercomputer
that will enable the company to scale server resources to meet the
demands of even the most complex Internet applications.
|
| Compaq bundles
fibre channel storage with high availability clusters
|
|
|
Compaq Computer Corporation
announced storage
high-availability bundles designed to ease deployment of high availability
Fibre Channel storage for ProLiant servers. These pre-packaged bundles are
sized for workgroups, departments, and business-critical enterprise
environments.
|
| Essential, an ODS Networks Company, Announces Shipment of 10th GSN Networking Switch
|
|
|
ODS Networks shipped its 10th GSN high
performance
networking switch.
The ESN-10000, based on the GSN (Gigabit System
Network) is the world's fastest and most powerful networking switch, the company claims.
Research and development efforts for the ESN-10000
were performed through a strategic alliance with Raytheon/E-Systems.
This
switch will be a key component of the world?s largest data compute cluster
being built in support of the U.S. Government?s Accelerated Strategic
Computing Initiative (ASCI) program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
|
