Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Korea acquires the latest technology and commercializes it for a variety of markets, such as energy and biotechnology. SAIT also sets long-term and midterm technology strategies and provides MIS services for Samsung Group. To advance its capabilities in the area of grid computing, SAIT is creating a supercomputing environment using 16 HP rx2600 servers based on the Itanium 2 processor.

Until recently, SAIT's supercomputing environment was based on 128 Alpha chips running Linux. When the lease period for the Alpha cluster system was nearing its end, SAIT decided to introduce a new cluster system based on the most advanced technologies available. SAIT selected HP Itanium 2-based systems based on several criteria, including confidence in the future success and market dominance of Itanium, superior price/performance, and a longstanding successful relationship with HP. The HP Itanium 2-based systems also enable SAIT to pursue a strategy based on multiple operating systems to streamline software development. The multiple operating system strategy lets SAIT acquire the technology know-how needed to develop, test, and introduce future systems, regardless of operating system. Thanks to thorough planning, SAIT expects to provide supercomputer services to Samsung Group based on Itanium as early as in March 2003. For the complete case study, visit: