INDUSTRY

Time's running out for SC/05 exhibitors to request a SCinet network connection for the SC/05 Conference in Seattle, November 12-18, 2005. Registration for SCinet connections closes at 5:00 PM CDT on October 1, 2005. After that point, all changes to an exhibitor's connection request will incur a $1,000.00 late fee. SCinet is the collection of high-performance networks built to support SC/05, the premier international conference on high performance computing, networking and storage. The SC Conference Series is co-sponsored by ACM SIGARCH and the IEEE Computer Society. SCinet features a high-performance production-quality network, an Open InfiniBand (OpenIB) Network and an extremely high performance experimental network, Xnet. "SCinet's excited to bring Open Infiniband capabilities to the conference for the first time," said SCinet Chair Barry Hess, Sandia National Laboratories. "It will provide a powerful infrastructure for exhibitors to experience the advantages of clustered computing, peer-to-peer processing, high performance access to StorCloud, long distance connectivity ranging from booth to booth within the convention center to a Wide Area Network (WAN) across the continental U.S." InfiniBand architecture is a high-performance, low-latency interconnect technology based on an industry standard. An InfiniBand fabric is built from hardware and software that is configured, monitored and operated to deliver a variety of services to users and applications. Volunteers from educational institutions, high-performance computing centers, network equipment vendors, U.S. National Laboratories, research institutions, research networks, and telecommunication carriers work together to design and deliver the SCinet networks. Industry vendors and carriers donate much of the equipment and services needed to build the LAN and WAN infrastructure. Planning begins more than a year in advance of each SC conference and culminates with a high-intensity installation just seven days before the conference begins. SCinet is providing direct wide area connectivity to many national and worldwide networks through peering relationships with principle networks. Aggregate WAN transport delivered to the industry and research exhibitors is expected to exceed 400 billion bits/second (Gbps) for SC/05. Wireless Network Services In collaboration with Trapeze Networks, SCinet will deploy IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b and IEEE 802.11g wireless networks within the Washington State Convention and Trade Center (WSCTC). These wireless networks are part of the production SCinet network, providing access to the Internet, and many other national and agency networks. The wireless network will be provided on the exhibit floor, in the Education Program areas, the ballroom and meeting rooms, and in many common areas within the WSCTC. SCinet provides the wireless networks for use by all exhibitors and attendees at no charge. Xnet Xnet (eXtreme Net) provides a venue to showcase cutting-edge, developmental networking technologies and experimental networking applications. The SCinet Exhibit floor network has evolved into a robust, high-performance, production-quality network that exhibitors and attendees depend on for reliable local area, wide area, and commodity network service. Consequently, it has become increasingly difficult for SCinet to showcase cutting-edge, potentially fragile technology. OEMs have at times been reticent about showcasing such hardware in SCinet, as it became a mission critical, production network. Xnet provides the solution to this dichotomy by providing a venue which is by definition bleeding-edge, pre-standard, and in which fragility is understood. Xnet provides vendors and research exhibitors an opportunity to showcase emerging network gear or capabilities, prior to their general commercial availability. For more information: Visit its Web site.