APPLICATIONS

The OpenIB Alliance announced it received an award from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) via the PathForward program, a technology vendor partnership project of NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing Program. The grant directs and underwrites OpenIB members Intel, Voltaire and Topspin Communications to accelerate the creation of a single InfiniBand software stack for submission to the Linux community for kernel inclusion and subsequent distribution. "It's rewarding to have the DOE recognize the vital role that the OpenIB Alliance members can play in delivering high performance Linux solutions for use across multiple enterprise and high performance computing market segments," said Richard Wirt, Intel Senior Fellow, General Manager, Software and Solutions Group. The OpenIB Alliance will submit modules of this stack to kernel.org requesting their inclusion in the 2.6 release and will request Linux distributors such as Red Hat and SUSE to include these modules. "We are delighted and honored to be selected by the DOE National Laboratories -- Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia -- to lead a team to deliver the next generation InfiniBand software stack for the open source, HPC and enterprise communities," said Ronnie Kenneth, CEO and chairman, Voltaire. The Open IB PathForward is multi-year project with milestones that include reducing the latencies of kernel level drivers, increasing the scalability and performance of the upper layer protocols for message passing, file I/O and cluster interconnect topology management. Throughout, the project the team will optimize routing for multi-layer, multi-topology, InfiniBand networks while improving redundancy, robustness and reliability. In addition the project will utilize the OpenIB software repository creating an open source community compliant software structure, problem tracking, maintenance and documentation capabilities. "We are pleased to be chosen for the OpenIB PathForward effort," said Krish Ramakrishnan, CEO and chairman, Topspin Communications. "Topspin is excited to play a key role in this development as it stands to benefit the broad and rapid market adoption of InfiniBand-based solutions." Initial demonstration of the first functionality of the OpenIB PathForward drivers will be at Supercomputing 2004 as part of the NNSA/ASC program at Booth 403. "The OpenIB PathForward marks an important step contributing to the open source efforts impacting the adoption of InfiniBand in HPC," said Mark Seager, principal investigator for ASC platforms at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "A true open source solution supported by the DOE, means the HPC, enterprise and storage industries can be assured of InfiniBand's scalability, robustness and interoperability across computing architectures and manufacturers. It also positions InfiniBand for deployment as a high-performance cluster and grid interconnect for expanding the scope of science insight we will gain from our capacity computing." "The InfiniBand Trade Association congratulates the OpenIB Alliance members on the PathForward award," said Dr. Tom Bradicich, co-chair of the InfiniBand Trade Association. Background: The OpenIB Alliance is an industry association chartered to deliver a single open source Linux-based software stack for deploying InfiniBand. Founded in June 2004, the OpenIB Alliance is comprised of technology vendors and end user organizations including: Dell; Engenio Information Technologies, Inc.; InfiniCon; Intel; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Linux Networx, Mellanox Technologies; Network Appliance; Oracle, Sandia National Laboratories; Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI), Sun Microsystems, Inc.; Topspin Communications; Veritas; and Voltaire. More information about OpenIB Alliance is available at www.openib.org DOE NNSA ASC PathForward Program PathForward is a technology vendor partnership project of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program -- an integral and vital element of our nation's Stockpile Stewardship Program, by which the United States ensures confidence in the safety, performance and reliability of its nuclear stockpile. ASC provides the integrating simulation and modeling capabilities and technologies needed to combine new and old experimental data, past nuclear test data, and past design and engineering experience into a powerful tool for future design assessment and certification of nuclear weapons and their components. Through PathForward, ASC strives to make strategic, targeted investments with its vendor partners to accelerate the development of hardware and software technologies needed to ensure that complete, balanced systems for capability and capacity computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are available in the marketplace for out-year procurements by the program.