ACADEMIA

Latest release delivers complete support for cost-effective, scalable private HPC compute clouds: 

Altair Engineering (www.altair.com) today announced the release of PBS GridWorks 10.1. This latest version builds upon the proven scalability and resiliency of PBS Professional for workload scheduling; delivers PBS Catalyst, an application-aware job management portal; and unveils PBS Analytics to provide expanded options for visualizing usage data to optimize high-performance computing investments.

PBS GridWorks is a complete suite of software tools vital for building and managing private clouds of high performance computing resources. The PBS Catalyst portal can be used to enable software-as-a-service (SaaS) gateways. Workloads can be optimized for dynamic cloud-computing configurations by using PBS Professional. PBS Analytics is well-suited for distributed, highly scalable environments, whether monitoring current resource use or planning for future changes.

"PBS GridWorks 10.1 provides our technical-computing customers with a very cost-effective solution for easily managing their compute-intensive application workloads," said Bill Nitzberg, chief technical officer for PBS GridWorks. "Cost-effective cloud computing requires powerful tools that can match constantly changing workloads with available resources for the most efficient use of all resources. Monitoring how efficiently resources are being used - especially energy - is very important. Our Green Provisioning feature, which is part of PBS Professional, helps customers get the most from their HPC investments by turning off underutilized systems, often lowering their energy use by 20 percent.  The result is immediate cost savings, while solving the most challenging problems in the manufacturing, life sciences, financial services, energy and academic research markets."

 What's New in PBS GridWorks 10.1
 Highlights and Key Features
 --  Expands charting and graphing options for PBS Analytics for
     extracting valuable insights into resource-utilization levels and
     capacity trends. Built using a Web 2.0 framework, PBS Analytics
     enables advanced analyses and visualization of historical usage data
     from one or multiple PBS Professional clusters.
 --  Introduces PBS Catalyst Desktop, which provides a simple but
     powerful "drag and drop" interface for submitting, monitoring and
     managing workloads connected to PBS Professional compute nodes. PBS
     Catalyst increases end-user productivity since there are no
     complicated commands to learn. PBS Catalyst automates the job
     submission process, allowing users to spend more time creating better
     models and simulations.
 --  Continues leadership and implementation of key industry standards
     vital for future workloads. PBS GridWorks now supports the Open Grid
     Forum HPC Basic Profile standard. PBS Professional, when paired with
     Windows HPC Server 2008, provides a single, consistent workload and
     resource management for multiple Windows HPC clusters.

With the 10.1 release, the PBS GridWorks suite provides a comprehensive solution that allows organizations to maximize the utilization of HPC resources, make data-driven IT planning and purchasing decisions, manage complex application workloads and minimize the energy consumed by global computing assets. The PBS GridWorks suite includes PBS Professional, PBS Analytics and PBS Catalyst.

 PBS Professional
 Commercial-grade HPC workload and resource management


Demanding HPC users worldwide have chosen PBS Professional to manage their most complex workloads, ensuring the highest possible levels of resource utilization and resiliency. PBS Professional is a core component of the PBS GridWorks suite that efficiently distributes HPC workloads across all forms of computing infrastructure. Easily scaling to support tens of thousands of processors - from clusters to the largest systems - PBS Professional ensures administrators get the maximum value from their computing infrastructure.

PBS Analytics

Analyze and visualize historical HPC usage data for optimized returns on HPC investments

PBS Analytics is a Web-based portal for visualizing usage data, helping HPC administrators understand how effectively their HPC workloads are using valuable computing resources. Detailed historical usage data can be easily selected, filtered and visualized from one or multiple HPC systems. Using PBS Analytics, administrators not only understand how well their HPC systems are working but also have the ability to make data-driven decisions for effectively optimizing current and future workloads.

 PBS Catalyst
 Intuitive, application-aware job submission and management portal


Submitting jobs to PBS GridWorks is as simple as dragging an input file onto the PBS Catalyst icon on your desktop system. There are no complicated commands to learn. PBS Catalyst understands your applications and how they work. Key input parameters - like the number of processors and amount of memory required - are automatically filled in. Input data sets are automatically staged and output files returned when the job completes. Once PBS Catalyst is configured for your engineering, life sciences or animation applications, it is simple to submit, monitor and manage workloads connected to any PBS Professional compute node or cluster.

"Altair is committed to serving as an industry leader in providing customers what they have been demanding and in enabling a true on-demand computing environment," said Altair Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James R. Scapa. "Our exclusive 'pay-for-only-what-you-use' software pricing model and the functionality found in the latest version of PBS GridWorks make cost-effective utility computing possible."

PBS GridWorks 10.1 is available immediately from Altair and Altair channel partners.