APPLICATIONS

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--SGI (NYSE: SGI) today announced that COLSA Corporation of Huntsville, Ala. has selected SGI® Origin® 3000 series servers as the central computing architecture for test beds located in the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command's Advanced Research Center (ARC), used in support of new missile defense test and simulation programs managed by the Missile Defense Agency. COLSA installed a 32-processor SGI® Origin® 3400 server in April and a 64- processor SGI® Origin® 3800 server in September to support the ground-based Midcourse Defense elements and the High-Performance Computing Center at the ARC. These acquisitions will enhance the ARC's already vast SGI® compute resources supporting a number of national weapons systems and missile defense programs. Among the SGI supercomputers maintained at the high-performance computing facility are SGI Origin 2000 series systems with more than 500 processors and SGI Origin 3000 series systems with more than 96 processors to support various classified and unclassified configurations. Powered by SGI technology, the ARC is critical in assessing the projected, alternative and demonstrated performance capabilities of Theater Missile Defense and National Missile Defense systems. At the heart of the center is a 15,000-square-foot room lined with row after row of SGI servers that drive large and complex modeling and simulation tools, requiring high-performance parallel-processing SGI supercomputers and advanced graphic workstations for their operation. "Since the early 1990s, SGI supercomputer and graphics systems have provided critical compute and visualization capabilities for many Missile Defense Agency programs, which must address the three phases of a missile's trajectory to engage threat targets in the boost, midcourse and terminal phases of flight," said Tony Celeste, national director of defense business, SGI Federal. "Computational, visualization and storage requirements for an effort like this are massive, complex and mission critical. SGI is uniquely suited to provide this kind of real-time computing and graphics power, which enables quicker time to insight." The ARC operates in a Distributed Interactive Simulation environment and hosts the modeling and simulation war games that provide analysis, integration, demonstration and performance verification of missile defense systems. This cost-effective approach reduces the need for more costly live-fire missile test programs and establishes requirements for future technology needs. These computer resources at the ARC provide a multiple test bed environment to support the research and development activities within the Missile Defense Agency and military services. The operation and maintenance of the ARC has increased to respond to demands for more sophisticated technology and advanced software applications, as well as for expanding network capabilities and services.