APPLICATIONS

Voltaire, the worldwide leader in grid backbone solutions, today announced a complete InfiniBand-based switching solution and software stack to support Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. The Voltaire solution enhances the scalability and simplifies the deployment of Windows-based clusters -- increasing communications of the systems 10 to 60 times over traditional methods. The solution is ideal for commercial high performance computing (HPC) applications employed by industries including scientific engineering, oil and gas exploration, automotive and financial services. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is Microsoft's initial offering for high-performance computing, and is designed to accelerate time-to-insight by providing an HPC platform that is simple to deploy, operate, and integrate with existing infrastructure and tools. Voltaire, an HPC leader, 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. "Microsoft is pleased to be working with Voltaire to deliver a high-quality clustered computing experience to our customers," said Kyril Faenov, director of high performance computing at Microsoft Corp. "Voltaire's InfiniBand-based Grid Backbone switching solutions bring enhanced performance, scalability and manageability to Windows clustered solutions." HLRS, a Microsoft Institute for High Performance Computing in Stuttgart, Germany, is currently using the Voltaire Grid Director ISR 9288 switching platform with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 on a 200-node cluster. HLRS provides support in the use of leading-edge supercomputer technology and applications to HPC users from the R&D organizations of leading companies in the automotive and other industries. "Our goal is to simplify HPC tools for mass usage in a variety of industries," said Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael M. Resch, HLRS. "The combination of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Voltaire Grid Backbone switching solutions offers both simplicity and high-performance in a single, elegant solution." SC|05 Demonstrations Voltaire and several of its system vendor partners will demonstrate the new solutions for Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 in the Microsoft booth (# 1206, 1208) at SC|05. Voltaire, HP and Ansys will show the Ansys Workbench and Ansys Distributed Solver using Microsoft MPI on Windows x64. In addition, there will also be a demonstration that will show a state-of-the-art LS-Dyna crash analysis simulation using Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Voltaire, and NEC blade servers. "We look forward to working with Microsoft to deliver high-performance solutions to address scientific and business computing challenges," said Patrick Guay, vice president, marketing, Voltaire. "Customers looking to run commercial HPC applications on Windows using clusters and grid-based configurations now can scale out and get great performance at a very attractive price point." Voltaire solutions for Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 will be generally available in the first half of 2006 through Voltaire's OEM, integrator and reseller partners.