APPLICATIONS

Platform Computing today announced the integration of Platform LSF with Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, which allows IT to allocate resources in real time through a single management console, leveraging the performance and capacity of both cluster and data center environments. Powered by Platform Enterprise Grid Orchestrator (EGO), Platform LSF is recognized as an industry-leading solution for resource management and orchestration for compute and data intensive applications. Through bi-directional job forwarding, enterprise IT benefits from a more adaptive infrastructure that can offload jobs wherever optimal capacity exists -- to or from the compute cluster or data center. The Platform LSF integration for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is scheduled for release in the first half of 2006. "The market for virtual environment software, the foundation for high performance computing (HPC), is growing rapidly as organizations seek ways to make their IT investments demonstrate measurable benefits in a very short order," said Dan Kusnetzky, Vice President, System Software, Enterprise Computing Group, IDC. "Often the virtualization technology commercial organizations are evaluating has proven itself supporting other workloads. As commercial organizations grow comfortable with this approach, it becomes the underpinning for many of its future IT investments. The work between Platform Computing and Microsoft will provide exactly the type of technology needed for these distributed applications." In addition to the announced integration, Microsoft and Platform Computing have agreed to collaborate on the development of an open standard for web services job scheduling. "Microsoft is focused on removing cost and complexity from high performance computing deployments, and delivering unprecedented computing power to the workgroup and department," said Kyril Faenov, Director, High Performance Computing, Microsoft Corp. "Through work with HPC industry leaders like Platform Computing, we have the ability to extend our solutions across heterogeneous environments and provide integrated workload management - - improving overall performance and efficiency for our customers." "As organizations aggressively embrace low-cost cluster solutions within the HPC and data center environments there is increased challenge in how load is distributed and managed," said Chris Purpura, Vice President, New Ventures and Alliances, Platform Computing. "Through a seamless integration with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, we will provide both Platform and Microsoft customers with more control, flexibility and agility to respond to the dynamic data processing needs within their HPC and data center environments."