AUTOMOTIVE

COLSA, ranked No. 15 in the world of supercomputing sites, was charged with finding a faster, less expensive way for this particular federal agency to continuously run a cluster for a one to two week timeframe. According to IBM's Pam McCarthy, vice president of federal systems sales, COLSA ranks very high on the company's list of valued customers because they are known for their outstanding reputation for solving some of the most challenging computational problems in the world. "Agilysys KSG, InfoSystems and IBM worked together to deliver a best of breed open systems compute capability that will better enable COLSA to address future computational challenges," said McCarthy. "The integrated team leveraged industry standards and advanced technology in a unique and innovative way." "We could have worked directly with IBM and bypassed both Agilysys KSG and InfoSystems altogether," said Mike Whitlock, hypersonic missile technology program director, COLSA. "But we value the support and resources of both companies and together they made it easier to meet our deadlines by providing us reliable products and sound technology advice." "This project illustrates why partners such as InfoSystems and their customers choose to work with Agilysys KSG," said Mark Taylor, vice president and general manager, IBM Business Unit at Agilysys. "Our strong relationships with top suppliers combined with our knowledgeable presales technical support team make it easier for our partners and their end customers to achieve their information technology goals." The Cluster 1350 combines the power of two different node choices -- OpenPower and xSeries servers -- with IBM Cluster CSM for Linux software. IBM storage products and leading third-party networking components were also integral components in the final solution. "Shortly after IBM's eServer Cluster 1350 with CSM was installed, we performed a benchmark comparison with COLSA's dated competitive architecture and determined they received three times faster performance out of each node while using the new server," said Clay Hales, president at InfoSystems, Inc. "The business of being a successful systems integration provider hinges on the people and companies we have working with us. Almost any company can call IBM and work with them directly, but we have a competitive advantage through our relationship with Agilysys KSG."