GAMING

Star-P helps Ohio Supercomputer Center bring high performance computing to small and mid-sized Businesses: Interactive Supercomputing Inc. is helping the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) bring the power of high performance computing (HPC) to small and medium sized companies. As part of its Blue Collar Computing initiative, OSC will offer ISC's Star-P software as a tool to help users do computational modeling and simulations using OSC's parallel computing resources, without having to become specialized computer scientists. The Blue Collar Computing initiative provides high performance computing to industries that do not currently have the time, money or programming expertise to invest in HPC resources. Star-P is an ideal tool for this initiative because it enables users to easily code algorithms and models on their desktops using popular high-level languages like MATLAB or Python, automatically transforming the programs to run on parallel systems. Star-P eliminates the need to re-program the applications in complex languages such as C, FORTRAN or MPI (message passing interface) to run on OSC's parallel servers and clusters - which typically requires arcane programming knowledge and months to complete. "To stay competitive in science and engineering industries, the U.S. needs easy to use programming platforms that can tap into HPC resources without having to become a parallel programming expert," said Ashok Krishnamurthy, director of OSC's Research and Scientific Development. "Star-P combined with the Blue Collar Computing initiative is a great platform for making our HPC resources accessible to a much broader base of users, which is our organization's key mission." Blue Collar Computing is an approach to supplying computational modeling and simulation solutions to companies without requiring large up-front investments. The model is service oriented, relying on amortizing the cost of expertise, software and hardware across many firms to reduce individual expenditures. It combines easy to use HPC programming languages, comprehensive training and a collaborative computing infrastructure. OSC will provide Star-P on up to 128 processors to use as a shared programming resource as part of its software portfolio. "Until now, only the largest industries have been able to utilize high performance computing to revolutionize their R&D efforts. Blue Collar Computing is a much-needed program that will enable a majority of U.S. firms to bring products to market faster using HPC-based modeling and simulation. We are honored Star-P will play a role in this important computing initiative," said Ilya Mirman, vice president of marketing at ISC. For more information about the Blue Collar Computing initiative, visit its Web site .