The global publication of record for High Performance Computing / July 4, 2003: Vol. 12, No. 26

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Features:

U.S. PLANS VECTOR SUPERCOMPUTER REVIVAL: By Christopher Lazou, HiPerCom Consultants, Ltd.
Recently, many computer scientists took the opportunity to listen to US colleagues about how they intend to address the issue of scientific technical computing leadership.
ORNL TO ADVANCE RESEARCH WITH NEW SGI SYSTEMS: SGI announced that the Center for Computational Sciences at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has purchased a new, 256-processor SGI Altix 3000 system. The new system will enable a powerful new class of applications for ORNL researchers.
NEW WORKSHOP SERIES LAUNCHED IN TERASCALE CODE DEVELOPMENT: The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) is launching a new workshop series, "Introduction to Terascale Code Development", to help researchers make effective use of terascale computing through NSF's PACI program.
COMPUTER VISION STUDY LINKS HOW BRAIN RECOGNIZES FACES: An engineer's quest to design computers that "see" faces the way humans do provides more evidence concerning a controversy in cognitive psychology.
COMPUTERS BOLSTER NEW URBAN SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM: The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city.
NETSCAPE FOUNDER SAYS WEB BROWSING INNOVATION DEAD: Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the pioneering Web browser Mosaic, said he laments that innovation has all but ceased on this essential piece of software that makes surfing the Net possible.
SIMULATION SOFTWARE SCORES HIGH FOR ONLINE COURSES: Students in an online class who learned networking through a commercially available simulation scored higher and retained more course information than students taught with a traditional network- diagramming software package, says a Penn State researcher.
NATIONAL CENTER TO ADVANCE CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH: A newly created cybersecurity research center, funded by the Office of Naval Research, will be led by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Cluster Computing:

LINUX NETWORX VALIDATES ITANIUM 2 FOR CLUSTERING: Linux Networx announced a benchmark validation for the Intel Itanium 2 processor running on the Intel SR870BH2 server platform. Linux Networx is using its benchmarking capabilities to test and evaluate new products for clustering.
SANDIA SELECTS LINUX NETWORX TO DELIVER INFINIBAND CLUSTER: Linux Networx announced Sandia National Laboratories has issued an order for Linux Networx to build a 128-node Evolocity II (E2) cluster system, which will be the largest InfiniBand cluster announced to date.
WINNERS OF CLUSTERING TECHNOLOGY EXCELLENCE AWARDS ANNOUNCED: ClusterWorld Conference & Expo, a premier event on clustered solutions in commercial, research and academic computing, has announced the winners of the first Excellence in Cluster Technology awards.
ASPEN SUPPORTS NEW INTEL SERVER PLATFORM: Aspen Systems, Inc., a leader in the custom design, manufacture and service of a wide array of Linux-based high-performance computing solutions, announced that in the coming weeks they will support the newly released Intel SR870BH2 server platform.
POLYSERVE SHARED DATA CLUSTERING GAINS ACCEPTANCE: PolyServe Inc. announced its Matrix Server shared data clustering solution. This solution is at the heart of several data center deployments of the Linux operating system.
STONEGATE INTRODUCES DROP-IN FIREWALL CLUSTERING: Stonesoft Corporation announced the release of version 2.2 of the StoneGate high availability firewall and VPN. The new version provides Drop-in Firewall Clustering (DFC), simplifying configuration and reducing installation time.
PSSC CLUSTERS TO PERFORM PREDICTIVE MODELING OF FIRE: PSSC Labs announced the delivery of two Linux-based clusters to be used by Western Fire Center Inc. The clusters will enable predictive modeling to help ascertain the causes and effects of fires that are involved in litigation more quickly.
CLUSTERVISION TO INSTALL CLUSTER FOR COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY: Manchester University in the UK has selected ClusterVision to install a new supercomputer cluster using the new 64-bit AMD Opteron processor. This will be the first public, production-ready AMD Opteron processor- based cluster for chemistry applications in Europe.
CLUSTERING EXPERTS MAKE NEWS AT INAUGURAL CLUSTERWORLD: More than 2,000 attendees and 45 industry exhibitors gathered to share the latest innovations in clustering technology, as the industry ramps for accelerated growth.
WORKSHOP ADDRESSES LINUX CLUSTERING: The Linux Clusters Institute (LCI) Workshop plans to offer intensive, hands-on sessions for computational scientists, researchers, engineers, analysts, and cluster system administrators.
EI ANNOUNCES "GET A GRANT" PROGRAM FOR LIFE SCIENCES: Engineered Intelligence Corporation announced a new program, "Get a Grant with EI" -- whereby EI works on grant proposals and projects with researchers and scientists in Life Sciences who want to develop new applications with Grids and clusters.
JEFFERSON LAB DEVELOPS POWERFUL CLUSTER SUPERCOMPUTER: Scientists and engineers from Jefferson Lab's Chief Information Office have created a "cluster supercomputer" that, at peak operation, can process 250 billion calculations per second.
MICROWAY'S NAVION T CLUSTERS WINS AWARD: Microway's NavionT clusters, based on the AMD OpteronT won the award for Best 64-bit Turnkey Solution at the Clusterworld Conference and Exposition.

High Performance Ads:

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

Vendor Spotlight:

HP LAUNCHES POWERFUL STANDARDS-BASED SERVERS: HP introduced a powerful line of servers based on Intel Corporation's new Itanium 2 1.5-gigahertz processor that redefines data center economics by delivering up to $1 million in total three-year cost savings over IBM servers.
SUN HELPS STUDENTS PREPARE FOR THE TECHNOLOGY WORKPLACE: Sun Microsystems Inc. announced that it will continue to provide sponsorship for no cost Java and UNIX curriculum to nonprofit educational institutions through the Cisco Networking Academy Program.
IBM REACHES POWER5 MILESTONE: IBM announced that the first servers based on its next generation POWER5 microprocessors are up and running in IBM's Poughkeepsie Labs.
SGI ANNOUNCES FIRST CUSTOMERS FOR NEW ALTIX 3000 SYSTEMS: SGI announced several early adopters in the technical markets who have purchased Linux-based SGI Altix 3000 servers and superclusters featuring the new Intel Itanium 2 processors.
NEW INTEL SERVER PROCESSORS STRENGTHEN HIGH-END LINE-UP: Intel Corporation introduced new Intel Itanium 2 processors and Intel Xeon processors MP, further strengthening Intel's products for high-end enterprise computing.
IBM SETS TRANSACTION PROCESSING RECORD: IBM announced a new record for transaction processing. An IBM eServer pSeries system, IBM TotalStorage FAStT900 and DB2 Universal Database used half the number of processors at a lower transaction processing cost to beat HP's new Itanium 2 processor-based Superdome.
MSC.SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTS VPD CAMPUS SYSTEM: MSC.Software Corp., a leading global provider of virtual product development (VPD) products including simulation software, services and systems, announced that Butler International, Inc. has purchased a VPD Campus Licensing System from MSC.Software.

DREAMWORKS USES LINUX-BASED HP TECHNOLOGY FOR NEW FILM: HP's advanced Linux-based technology played a critical role in the creation of "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas," the newest animated movie from DreamWorks which opens to audiences this week.
NEC RELEASES "TX7 SERIES" SERVER FOR HPC: NEC announced that it started the sales of NX7700 UNIX server series, which consists of six models.
RACKSAVER AND MICROSOFT JOIN FORCES: RackSaver announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to develop the next generation of high performance computing hardware solutions.
IBM INVESTS $10M IN ISV COMMUNITY: IBM is investing $10M in ongoing EMEA-wide activities supporting Independent Software Vendors (ISV), to promote new and modernised applications for the IBM eServer iSeries range.
SGI AND DDD ANNOUNCE ALLIANCE FOR 3D DISPLAYS: SGI announced an alliance with DDD Group plc whereby both companies will work together to deliver 3D "glasses-free" display solutions that complement Silicon Graphics visualization systems to SGI end users and independent software vendors.
PROMICRO DELIVERS ENTERPRISE COMPUTING WITH INTEL PLATFORM: Promicro, a leading provider of high performance computing solutions, announced that the ProServer 2264 is now available with new server technology from Intel Corporation.
AMD EXPANDS OPTIONS FOR ENTERPRISE COMPUTING: AMD announced an expansion of its family of AMD Opteron processors with the new AMD Opteron processor 800 Series, for 4-way and 8-way servers and the 100 Series, for 1-way servers and workstations.

Quote of the Week:

"When it comes to recognizing faces, people aren't perfect, but computers are even worse. For a computer to interact well with humans and identify people the way we want it to, it would have to make the same errors that humans make."

Aleix Martinez,
assistant professor of electrical engineering
at Ohio State University

News Briefs:

Hardware

Software

Networking

Storage

General

Short Takes:

Product Watch:: Extreme Announces New Switching Solution.
Dell Deploys New PowerEdge 3250 Server.
3Dlabs To Ship New OpenGL Compiler.
Financial Update:: SGI Amends Exchange Offer.
Global Chip Sales Rise In May.
LSI Logic Updates Q2 Business Outlook.
Corporate Liaisons:: VERITAS Software Completes Acquisition.
OSDL & Linux Kernel Maintainer Team Up.
Eight Companies Form Linux Alliance.
People and Positions:: OSC Gets New Executive Director.
Force10 Networks Gets New CEO.
Linux Veteran Brian Grega Joins OSDL.

Conferences & Events

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

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