ENGINEERING

AUSTIN, TX -- Dell (Nasdaq:DELL) today announced that the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is using a Dell(tm) PowerEdge(tm) server cluster to improve the understanding and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, a condition that causes approximately 400,000 deaths annually in North America. The UAB Cardiac Rhythm Management Laboratory (CRML) is a state-of-the-art research facility where scientists study the formation, maintenance and termination of cardiac arrhythmias with the goal of improving treatment strategies. Recognized as a leader in this field of research, the CRML has made significant progress in helping understand this life-threatening condition. "Our Dell cluster is used for the complex mapping and modeling of the heart, its electrical properties and underlying cellular structures," said Dr. Andrew Pollard, associate professor in the University's Biomedical Engineering Department. "The cluster is so straightforward and has such simplified maintenance requirements that a local high school sophomore has installed the operating system and facilitates systems management." In a market traditionally dominated by high-priced, proprietary supercomputers, Dell's High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) program enables standard network servers to be used as high-performance computers that are lower in cost and easy to expand. The Dell HPCC program offers Dell PowerEdge servers, services and validated software packages that are available in 8-, 16-, 32- and 64-node easy-to-order configurations for prices starting at $75,000 for an 8-node cluster. These configurations are designed for clustering as a single system to handle highly compute-intensive applications and to allow customers to add incremental processing as their businesses grow. The UAB CRML is currently using a cluster of 16 PowerEdge 300SC and PowerEdge 1400SC servers with two CPUs each running on Red Hat Linux 7.1. The organization recently won a National Institute of Health Program Project Grant, which it used to quadruple the size of its cluster. "The University of Alabama at Birmingham's cluster implementation speaks directly to the benefits of using industry-standard servers to handle complex computing tasks that could historically only be performed by more expensive, proprietary systems," said Russ Holt, vice president of Dell's Enterprise Systems Group. "By combining the power and manageability of our enterprise systems with the proven cost efficiencies of the Dell model, we can help our customers deploy high-performance clusters faster and at a lower cost without sacrificing performance." For more information visit www.dell.com/clusters.