Palo Alto, California, USA 14 November 2002---HP and the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Supercomputing Center (PSC) today announced they have formed a strategic alliance to demonstrate the potential of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s extensible TeraGrid.

HP will add a cluster of HP Itanium 2-based systems running the Linux OS to PSC's existing supercomputing environment, and PSC will participate in HP's worldwide grid program. PSC also will join the Gelato Federation, an HP-sponsored worldwide consortium focused on enabling open source Linux-based Itanium computing solutions. Membership in Gelato is awaiting approval from the organization's council.

Through their collaboration, PSC and HP expect to further the TeraGrid goals of enabling scalable, open source, commodity computing on IA-64 and Linux to address real-world problems. The added HP Itanium 2-based system cluster will complement LeMieux, PSC’s 6TFLOPS Tru64 Unix-based AlphaServer supercomputer. This massive aggregation of Quadrics-connected AlphaServer ES4x nodes is the most capable unclassified supercomputer system in the U.S.

The TeraGrid is expected to provide the nation’s fastest and most powerful computing grid, with the goal of demonstrating grid services by running key applications by 2004. By connecting LeMieux, PSC will expand the heterogeneous computing potential of the TeraGrid, with the addition of HP’s Itanium 2-based systems. Of equal importance, the effort will render HP even more synonymous with “Heterogeneous Performance.”

Unbeknown to many in the IT industry, HP is a leader in grid computing. Through its worldwide grid program, HP collaborates with grid participants worldwide and has internal grid investments with nodes in Bristol, UK; Palo Alto, California; Nashua, New Hampshire, Houston, Texas; and other locations. HP also is a founding sponsor of the Gelato Federation, (see http://www.gelato.org for more details). For its part, PSC will bring its real-world expertise in grid computing middleware, applications and highest performing computing and communications to the Gelato effort.

HP will collaborate with PSC as early adopters and leaders in grid computing by participating in selected major grid projects, running meaningful benchmarks to aid in scaling up and quantifying performance and capacity; and understanding how to evolve grids to full-scale commercial utility computing. As such, the firm’s latest HPTC initiative will advance the HP Utility Data Center (UDC) and Adaptive Infrastructure programs.

PSC also plans to use HP’s Itanium 2-based systems running Linux for future high-performance computing needs. The alliance will use HP equipment, which will be installed at PSC. In addition, HP engineers and researchers, both from the HPTC Division as well as from HP Labs, will work with PSC personnel to run tests and realistic benchmarks to help ensure the successful implementation and utlilization of the TeraGrid.

PSC will port and tune key applications to HP’s Itanium 2-based systems running the Linux OS. These activities will be performed in the context of PSC’s membership in the Gelato Federation. This collaboration builds on well-established and successful relations with HP University Relations, the HP HPTC product divisions, pre-merger Compaq, and going back to joint agreements between PSC and Digital.

As we’ve previously reported, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA-based Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh together with Westinghouse Electric Company. It was established in 1986 and is supported by several federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and private industry. The PSC is also a showcase for HP’s increasingly-popular AlphaServer SC supercomputer systems, which typically are based on tens to hundreds of AlphaServer ES4x quadprocessors linked together by high-performance fat-tree switches from UK-based Quadrics Supercomputing World. Stellar performance aside, one unique feature of the PSC AlphaServer SC system is the AlphaServer ES4x colour scheme: in lieu of the Compaq/HP-standard carbon black and silver trimmed cabinetry, the PSC system is decked out in black and gold, the official colours of the University of Pittsburgh.

Stay tuned for more developments in the HPTC space as HP implements its plan to extend its Number One market share position in this burgeoning market with AlphaServers, Itanium systems, advanced management and infrastructure capabilities, and the Linux operating system.

(c) 2002 by Terry C.Shannon, Shannon Knows HPC

A special note to my fellow CUO members: I just concluded the relocation of my branch office from Ashland, Massachusetts, USA to Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. My legal domicile remains in Texas, but I’ll be doing the bulk of my reporting from my new Albuquerque residence. Those unfamiliar with Albuquerque may be interested to know that this western U.S. city (about 600Km west of Denver, Colorado) is a hotbed of scientific research, and home to one of Intel’s newest and largest fabs, Fab 11x in Rio Rancho. (SKHPC’s New Mexico snailmail address is 10405 Ridgecircle Drive NW, Albuquerque, NM 87114-5640, just 1 Km from Fab 11x.) The atomic bomb was developed at Los Alamos National Labs, just 150Km or so north of Albuquerque, and the Lab now is an epicenter of HPTC research. The world’s largest supercomputer, the AlphaServer SC system known as ASCI-Q, is being built at LANL. ASCI-Q is in its early operational phase, and should achieve 30TFLOPS of performance when Phase One is completed in the next year or so. Bill Gates founded Microsoft Corporation in downtown Albuquerque, and the city is the home of Sandia National Laboratories’ New Mexico facility (see http://www.sandia.gov/about/index.html for more details).

All CUO members who happen to find themselves in Albuquerque are invited to drop by and visit SKHPC’s branch office and enjoy a tour of local attractions. SKHPC’s primary email address remains terryshannon@attbi.com, but this is likely to change. I can also be reached via www.openvms.org, and will provide updated information on email and landline access as it becomes available.

Cheers,

Terry Shannon