The global publication of record for High Performance Computing / June 6, 2003: Vol. 12, No. 22

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Features:

DOE REVIEWS LIVERMORE LAB: SECURITY UNACCEPTABLE: A full review of security has been ordered by the Department of Energy for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory after discovering security lapses that officials called "unacceptable."
INTERVIEW WITH EYAL WALDMAN, CEO MELLANOX TECHNOLOGIES: by Alan Beck, Editor-in-Chief
HPCwire interviewed Eyal Waldman, CEO of Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. to discuss his plans for InfiniBand in the HPC market.
CYBER ATTACKS CONTINUE, BUT FINANCIAL LOSSES ARE DOWN: Computer Security Institute (CSI) announced the results of its eighth annual Computer Crime and Security Survey.
SCIENTISTS RETHINK SINGLE-MOLECULE WIRES: Single-molecule switches have the potential to shrink computing circuits dramatically, but new results from the Arizona State University lab now show that laboratory-standard wired molecules have an unavoidable tendency to "blink" randomly.
SUPERCOMPUTING SPENDING: POWER VS STORAGE: A couple of leading American computer researchers are now challenging the policy and assumption that only government money could ensure that the nation's research scientists had the computing power they needed to pursue projects.
COMPUTER MODEL MAY HELP PREDICT CRIMES: More than a decade of extensive crime data collection matched with new technology may soon allow police to predict to a surprising degree of accuracy the number and type of crimes that will occur in a given neighborhood one month in advance.
NEW FPGA PROGRAM TECHNIQUES KICK "BUT": USC researchers have presented tools to allow applications to be speedily written for and optimized on dynamic computing systems.
OBSERVING THE "WINGS" OF ATOMS: By crunching numbers on a supercomputer for six months, University of Utah researchers showed it is possible for an atomic force microscope to make images of the wing-shaped paths of minuscule electrons as they orbit atoms.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR - DARPA "BLUE PLANET" ISSUE: In the following letter John D. McCalpin, Ph.D., Senior Technical Staff Member IBM Global Microprocessor Development Group responds to an article in last week's HPCwire, involving IBM's DARPA HPCS proposal.
FIRST 90-NANOMETER X ARCHITECTURE TEST CHIP PRODUCED: The X Initiative, a semiconductor supply-chain consortium, announced that Applied Materials, Inc. has produced the industry's first 90-nm test chip for X Architecture interconnect designs at its Maydan Technology Center in Sunnyvale, Calif.
GLOBAL TECH FIRMS COMPETE TO HIRE INDIAN STAFF: Global firms such as IBM and Accenture are increasingly taking advantage of relatively low wages to hire software engineers in India, building up pressure on local software firms already struggling with tighter margins.
CIA DEVELOPING SOFTWARE TO SCOUR PHOTOS: The CIA is bankrolling efforts to improve technology designed to scour millions of digital photos or video clips for particular cars or street signs or even, some day, human faces.
IBM INVESTORS MULL SIZE, SCOPE OF INQUIRY: Investors in IBM should brace for a period of anemic performance from its stock while the cloud of a regulatory probe hangs over the world's largest computer company, fund managers said.
NEW SOFTWARE HELPS TEAMS DEAL WITH INFORMATION OVERLOAD: Penn State researchers have developed new software that can help decision-making teams in combat situations or homeland security handle information overload by inferring teams' information needs and delivering relevant data from computer-generated reports.
UNIVERSITY UNVEILS NEW SUPERCOMPUTER: Australia's Adelaide University has unveiled a new supercomputer capable of one trillion calculations per second.
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM REACHES FOR THE STARS: At the American Museum of Natural History, audiences will soon take a 3-D supercomputer-generated Virtual Universe tour.
BRIEFING DESCRIBES HPC CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATIONAL SECURITY: A briefing held in the Rayburn House Office Building reviewed the vital contributions of high performance computing, i.e., supercomputing, to U.S. national security.
CALTECH TEAM SEEKS TO END NET GRIDLOCK: A team at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has developed a system called Fast TCP. A key feature of Fast TCP is that it could run on the same Internet infrastructure we have today.

Cluster Computing:

RACKABLE SYSTEMS DEMO LINUX CLUSTER FOR LIFE SCIENCES: Rackable Systems and The BioTeam announced that the two companies will feature a demonstration of pre-configured Linux clustering for the life sciences market at the Executive IT Life Science Forum.
APPRO SHIPS HYPERBLADE CLUSTER SOLUTION TO PENN STATE: Appro, a leading developer of high-density, high-performance servers announces the first delivery of the Appro HyperBlade Cluster Solution based on dual Intel Xeon Processors.
TACC SELECTS TOPSPIN FOR HPC CLUSTERS: The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and Topspin Communications, a leader in switched computing, announced that TACC has selected Topspin's Switched Computing System as a planned key component of its high-performance visualization cluster.
VOYAGER CAPITAL INVESTS $7 MILLION IN RACKSAVER: Voyager Capital, a leading information technology venture firm, announced it has made a $7 million investment in RackSaver, a leading provider of high-density, rack-optimized blade servers and supercomputer clusters.

High Performance Ads:

Learn about the NEESgrid system architecture through
a NCSA-developed online presentation.

Vendor Spotlight:

IBM GAINS SERVER REVENUE SHARE IN KEY MARKET SEGMENTS: IBM announced that the company gained world wide server factory revenue market share in all key segments in the first quarter of calendar 2003, as compared to the same quarter last year, according to IDC's World- wide Quarterly Server Tracker.
HP SEES MARKET SHARE GAINS DRIVING GROWTH: Hewlett-Packard Co., the No. 2 computer maker, will focus on winning increased market share to drive growth amid continued weak demand for information technology, Chief Executive Carly Fiorina said.
MSC.SOFTWARE EXPANDS BIOMEDICAL PRODUCT PORTFOLIO: MSC.Software announced a strategic partnership with San Clemente, CA- based Biomechanics Research Group (BRG), Inc. Under the terms of the agreement MSC.Software will market and support biomechanics simulation solutions.
SUN CUTS SERVER COSTS AND BOOSTS PERFORMANCE: Sun Microsystems has offered a price reduction and a 17-percent increase in processor speed on its Sun Fire V880 systems. Sun is also reducing prices on its four-way Sun Fire V480 systems by up to 20 percent.
HP, OPSWARE TIE UP ADVANCED SOFTWARE: Opsware Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have entered into a strategic agreement to combine Opsware's software that helps automate computer data centers with HP's own Utility Data Center offering.
SUN TO DRAW MORE DEVELOPERS TO JAVA: Sun Microsystems' plans to lure more developers to Java, are being revealed more and more by industry executives. These plans are an effort slated to be unveiled at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.
IBM DELIVERS INDUSTRY-LEADING VIRTUALIZATION PRODUCTS: IBM announced general availability dates for its first two storage virtualization products, industry-leading solutions designed to help customers ease complexity and boost productivity in storage area networks while supporting high performance.
HP PROVIDES CIRCUIT CITY WITH AN IT UPGRADE: Circuit City Stores, Inc. has selected HP servers, storage and services to support an ongoing effort to upgrade its technology infrastructure in selected stores across the United States.
ANSYS ANNOUNCES CFX-5.6 FOR ADVANCED CFD: ANSYS Inc., a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, announced the release of CFX-5.6 which provides increased accessibility to advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD).
TENFOLD ANNOUNCES SELF-AWARE APPLICATIONS: TenFold Corporation recently announced conformance to IBM's vision of "autonomic computing" with a significant and unique feature of its Universal Application platform called "SelfAwareness."

Quote of the Week:

"The more time-critical the environment in which a team operates, the more effectively it needs to process information. A computer program that acts as a team member may be more efficient in processing information than a human teammate."

John Yen,
Professor of Information Sciences and Technology,
Pennsylvania State University

News Briefs:

Hardware

Software

Networking

Storage

General

Short Takes:

Product Watch:: Motorola Demos Open Standard Platforms.
APCON Showcases New Blades At SuperComm 2003.
Lightspeed Launches Traffic Control v4.0.
Financial Update:: Microsoft Investing $1.7B In Servers.
RackSaver Closes Equity Round With $14M.
PeopleSoft To Buy Rival J.D. Edwards.
Corporate Liaisons:: Agere Systems And NComm Team Up.
Axceleon And Egenera Form Relationship.
Compuware Previews Technologies For MS.
People and Positions:: NPACI Gets Two New Executive Members.
AMI Semiconductor Adds Senior VP.
NIH Names New Director.

Conferences & Events

HPCwire notes events and highlights a complete listing of industry-related conferences, exhibitions, meetings, etc.

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