ACADEMIA

MSC.Software Corp. , the leading global provider of virtual product development (VPD) products including simulation software and services, today announced MSC.Nastran support for 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based platforms. This system complements the support of MSC.Nastran for 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 processor-based platforms. MSC.Nastran is optimized on the Intel platform to promote exceptional performance, reliability, and lower total cost of ownership. "We are extending our long-standing 64-bit offerings on Intel platforms with an MSC.Nastran release supporting 64-bit Intel Xeon processors. By Intel providing a total solution for us through hardware, software tools, and services, we are able to help our customers reduce time-to-market and provide them with the performance, quality, and capacity they demand," said Reza Sadeghi, vice president, solver development, MSC.Software. In addition, MSC.Software also released an MSC.Nastran update that includes advanced optimizations for Itanium 2-based platforms. This update builds on the Intel's 64-bit foundation of the past 5 years and extends the performance customers will see with high-end analysis. 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based workstations are ideal for today's demanding engineer. With large cache size and Intel Hyper-Threading Technology tailored for multitasking environments, Intel Xeon processor-based workstations provide outstanding real-world performance for multi-threaded applications. 64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based workstations support a broad range of 32 and 64-bit applications and are designed to handle large data sets, increased memory, demanding graphics, and fast I/O with the support of advanced technologies like DDR2 Memory and PCI Express. "64-bit Intel Xeon processor-based workstations provide the high-end performance needed for the 64-bit MSC.Nastran application. With our proven track record, optimized solutions, and innovative platforms, we're helping MSC.Nastran customers achieve an efficient transition to 64-bit computing," said Phil Brace, director of marketing for Intel's Digital Enterprise Group. "Additionally, larger datasets and more processor-intensive MSC.Nastran applications continue to enjoy extensive deployment on Itanium 2 based SMP and cluster-based High Performance Computing platforms from system manufacturers." The 64-bit MSC.Nastran for Intel Xeon processors currently runs on SuSE 9.0, SuSE 9.1 and RH 3.0 operating systems.