ACADEMIA

Bull adopts Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003: Microsoft Corp. and Bull SAS, one of Europe's largest information technology companies, today announce the availability of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 on Bull NovaScale R400 clusters, built from high performance Intel Xeon processor-based servers. The partnership marries Microsoft’s high-performance computing (HPC) platform with the proven capability of Bull in HPC clusters, creating an easy to use, scalable infrastructure, featuring the best price to performance ratio. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is Microsoft’s first software offering designed specifically to run parallel, HPC applications for customers solving complex computations. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 accelerates customers’ time-to-insight by providing a HPC platform that is simple to deploy, operate, and integrate with existing infrastructure and tools. Computer clusters running MCAE (Mechanical Computer-Aided Engineering) codes have become an integral part of design and manufacturing facilities. Leveraging on its deep expertise in designing and delivering HPC clusters such as Europe’s largest Supercomputer at CEA, Bull complements its traditional offering with Windows CCS 2003 solutions to address the needs of industrial users who need fast and easy turnkey solutions for their MCAE (Mechanical Computer-Aided Engineering) applications. The NovaScale R400 are rack-optimized servers in the Bull NovaScale Universal family of servers and clusters. They take full advantage of the new Intel Xeon dual core architecture, making them ideal for high-performance, heat-sensitive, space-constrained environments, helping enterprises' IT managers to increase power efficiency and lower energy costs. With frequency up to 3.0 GHz and 1333MHz Front Side Bus, they offer uncompromised performance to power-hungry MCAE users. “Bull is one of the leading HPC vendors in Europe due in no small part to their excellent technology and development support,” said Björn Tromsdorf, HPC product and solution manager at Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). “The combination of Microsoft and Bull allows HPC to be offered as a solution in markets where server clusters would previously have been too complex and expensive to manage and use.” “Microsoft Compute Cluster Server 2003 is an ideal platform for addressing the MCAE needs of leading manufacturers,” said Jean-Francois Lavignon, Director of the HPC Business Unit at Bull. “The cooperation of Microsoft and Bull with the forefront ISVs serving the MCAE sector ensures our customers that the reliability and productivity of their solutions will be unmatched.” Today’s announcement was made at the Fluent Forum France, one of the premier conferences in Paris for engineers and managers involved with computer-aided engineering. The Fluent Forum France is hosted by Fluent Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of ANSYS, a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes. ANSYS is one of more than 20 ISVs in the EMEA region who have developed applications that run on top of the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 platform. The company’s FLUENT computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software is a vital part of the computer-aided engineering process for companies around the world and is deployed in nearly every manufacturing industry. “We are excited to see Bull and Microsoft working together to provide cluster solutions that will allow our customers to expand their simulation capability,” said Ferit Boysan, vice president and general manager at ANSYS, Inc. “Especially for our customers who are already using Microsoft Windows, the Bull platform combined with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 provides a high performance solution that leverages existing IT resources and expertise.” its Web site.