Voltaire Ships InfiniBand-Based Solution for Microsoft

Voltaire’s Broad Network of OEM Partners and Resellers to Offer Solution; HLRS Deploys Solution for Automotive Industry Research & Development Projects -- Voltaire today announced the immediate availability of a complete InfiniBand-based switching solution and software stack to support Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. The Voltaire solution enhances the performance and scalability of Windows-based clusters and provides a dramatic increase in application performance. The solution is ideal for commercial High-Performance Computing (HPC) applications employed by industries including automotive, aerospace, scientific engineering, geo sciences and financial services. “Microsoft is pleased to be working with Voltaire to bring Windows-based High-Performance Computing clusters to our customers,” said John Borozan, group product manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corp. “Organizations in a wide array of industries that rely on High-Performance Computing for product design, modeling and visualization can now achieve optimal results using Voltaire InfiniBand in a Microsoft Windows environment.” Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is Microsoft’s official entry into the world of HPC, and is an integrated, standards-based compute clustering platform built on top of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions. Voltaire offers multi-service switches with integrated InfiniBand, Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity that are deployed in many of the world’s largest supercomputers and grids. Voltaire’s solution for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 includes the OpenFabrics stack for Microsoft Windows. “We are extremely pleased to be able to offer customers Voltaire’s InfiniBand hardware and HPC solutions on Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003,” said Patrick Guay, senior vice president, marketing, Voltaire. “Customers in industries ranging from education and research to financial services and manufacturing can now get simplified deployment, operation and integration with existing systems through Windows-based HPC clusters.” Voltaire solutions supporting Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 are now available through Voltaire’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM), integrator and reseller channels. The solution will be offered as part of HP’s Unified Cluster Portfolio, a comprehensive, modular package of tested and pre-configured hardware, software and services that integrates scalable computation, data management and visualization in a single-clustered environment, greatly enhancing productivity in HPC environments. “Voltaire’s InfiniBand switching and software solutions are an important part of HP’s cluster offering because they provide exceptional performance, scalability and manageability for distributed computing environments,” said Ed Turkel, HPC Product Marketing Manager, HP. “We are pleased to provide these benefits to our many customers with Windows-based compute environments.” Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart (HLRS), one of Microsoft’s Institutes for High-Performance Computing in Stuttgart, Germany, is currently using the Voltaire Grid Backbone switching platform with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 on a cluster of Dual Intel EM64T central processing unit (CPU) NEC servers running LS-DYNA. HLRS uses the cluster to provide computer aided engineering services to the research and development organizations of several leading automotive manufacturers. “The combination of Voltaire’s InfiniBand-based switching solutions and Windows Compute Cluster 2003 enables High-Performance Computing in a simplified, manageable environment,” said Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael M. Resch, HLRS. “We see great value in the embedded management capabilities both in Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Voltaire Grid Backbone solutions.”