ENGINEERING

AUSTIN, TX -- Dell today announced it will offer software from Platform Computing Inc. to enhance the performance of Dell PowerEdge servers used for data-intensive analysis in areas such as scientific research, engineering and graphical rendering and modeling. The software is designed to provide Dell customers the ability to distribute processing workloads more evenly across multiple servers in high-performance computing clusters (HPCC) assisting in areas like cancer research, seismic imaging and heart arrhythmia research. The alliance combines standards-based Dell PowerEdge servers with Platform Computing’s LSF workload management, SiteAssure resource management, Platform Intelligence performance management software and Platform Clusterware. The agreement calls for Dell and Platform Computing to jointly market high-performance computing solutions for customers worldwide. Dell and Platform also will jointly engage to deliver customers grid computing solutions based on Dell PowerEdge servers and Platform Computing’s Enterprise Grid Solution. The software provides key technology to build grids with PowerEdge servers, such as a common Web portal as the point of entry into a grid, a common workload exchange to allow organizations to share and access remote computing resources, a central control point to transfer and replicate data files, and a workload manager to distribute and execute applications. The companies will also dedicate resources to promote HPCC solutions in research-intensive industries such as financial services, automotive, energy and more. “Dell’s HPCC program provides customers with the power of supercomputing with all of the cost and flexibility advantages of industry-standard technologies,” said Russ Holt, vice president and general manager of Dell’s Enterprise Systems Group. “Partners like Platform Computing enable us to provide more balanced HPCC solutions and add new technology to the program for emerging areas such as grid computing.” “Over the past decade, Platform has demonstrated that distributed computing, and grid computing as an extension, can produce tremendous business benefits,” said Paul Hill, vice president, marketing and business development, Platform Computing. “Our alliance with Dell reinforces our philosophy of partnering with other industry leaders to provide integrated, comprehensive grid, clustering and high performance solutions to help customers solve specific business challenges.”