GOVERNMENT

IBM today announced major new Grid computing projects, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has completed a pilot using Grid computing and Linux to help EPA and state agencies demonstrate how Grid can improve air quality modeling and better predict the environmental risks of exposure to air pollution. In addition to EPA, IBM announced five new commercial Grid projects, including Siemens mobile, NTT Com, and Sinopec, as well as ten new application software companies that have readied their products for Grid computing. The IBM project at EPA, being performed jointly with prime contractor Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), includes the Grid Toolbox, a collection of open standards-based Grid software from IBM, Red Hat Linux Enterprise 2.1 and Avaki Enterprise Information Integration (EII) software. The agency is currently evaluating plans for expanding the project to a production environment using IBM eServer pSeries supercomputers. EPA is also investigating the opportunity to offer Grid capabilities as a service offering. "This advanced, open-standards-based system from IBM provides the agency with added speed and increased efficiency focused on improving the nation’s health by partnering with the states in their implementation of new clean air standards,” said Dr. Paul Gilman, assistant administrator for research and development, EPA. Gilman added that the EPA anticipates a positive impact on human health protection, ecosystem assessment, pollution prevention, computational toxicology, genomics, systems biology, and many other areas critical to the protection of human health and the environment. New Applications Ready for Grid IBM announced that it has completed work with ten leading software companies to ready their applications for Grid computing. The companies are Ascential, Cadence, Chordiant, GGY, Exa, Insbridge, LSTC, Searchspace, Peregrine, and Turboworx. With this announcement, a total of 17 application software companies have completed work with IBM this year to tune their applications for Grid computing. "The range of new Grid computing projects announced today, in government, telecommunications, manufacturing, petroleum and digital entertainment, make it clear that Grid computing is a force in the commercial enterprise," said Ken King, vice president, Grid Computing, IBM. “The addition of ten new application software providers to the roster of companies that have worked with IBM to prepare their products for Grid further supports our view of its momentum.” New European Grid IBM today announced new commercial Grid computing references at: Siemens mobile -- A world leader in the production of mobile communications devices, Siemens mobile turned to Grid computing technology from IBM and Grid middleware company Platform Computing to speed the development and improve the quality and reliability of mobile communications software. With Grid, Siemens mobile can better adapt to future software development requirements and designate workloads to underutilized servers. The Grid at Siemens mobile includes IBM eServer xSeries servers running Novell’s SUSE Linux. Grids in Asia-Pacific NTT Communications Corporation -- Japan’s largest telecommunications company is testing Grid and Autonomic computing technologies at OCN, NTT Com's Internet connectivity service. Offering a wide range of Internet services with various networking technologies, including optical fiber and ADSL, OCN is the largest such service in Japan, with more than four million subscribers. Working with the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, NTT Com’s goal is to use these technologies to improve the service quality of OCN. NS Solutions (IT subsidiary of Nippon Steel Corporation) -- The first instance of Grid technology being applied to production in iron mills, NS Solutions is testing the use of Grid computing to improve production planning systems of Nippon Steel. NS Solutions expects the use of Grid technology will allow it to perform calculations in near real time, based on customer specifications and delivery deadlines, thereby increasing its yield of iron slabs, a key component of its manufacturing process. In tests, NS Solutions connected multiple servers running Red Hat Linux and the Globus Toolkit. In addition, the system is linked with a group of servers located in NS Solutions’s Systems Research and Development Center in Yokohama City. Sinopec -- China’s largest producer and marketer of oil products and a leading supplier of petrochemical products, Sinopec asked IBM to create a Grid infrastructure to improve access to distributed data that resided in multiple independent silos across the company. Working with Enterprise Information Integration software provider Avaki, IBM built a Grid solution that provides Sinopec with easier access to data, improved storage capabilities, and reduced total cost of ownership. Yurion -- A leading Korean provider of streaming audio for portable devices, this subsidiary of iRiver, the world’s largest MP3 maker, turned to IBM for a high-performance Grid capable of supporting 100,000 concurrent users and 200 TB of storage. The Grid includes IBM eServer BladeCenter and eServer xSeries servers, as well as IBM TotalStorage, SAN Volume Controller and TotalStorage FAStT storage systems. IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. For more information about IBM's Grid computing business, visit www.ibm.com/grid. IBM provides technology and Grid computing consulting expertise to 80 of the world's largest and most influential government and public institutions and more than 50 of the world's most prestigious universities and academic institutions.