INDUSTRY

By Uwe Harms -- Partec, wll known because of its Cluster communication and management software moves to Cluster Competence Center. On November 5th there is a meeting with partners at Research Center Jülich to define a new business model. It is based on open source for Parastation - the Sun Community License. November 5th marks a reorganization and start of a cooperation with different partners from Academia and Research. Partec discussed the new way with its customers and future partners. The business model based on licensees was not appropriate and hindered the worldwide distribution of the specific software Parastation. It is a mixture of high-speed communication and management middleware. The new model proposes a basic version of Parastation as Open Source but based on the Sun Community License. Here the source is open and users can modify the program but should send the results back to Partec. Commercial and industrial users can order a support and advisory package - supported Clustering. They can choose between an e-mail service up to a supporter at the cluster site. As the Partec team collected cluster know-how for five years and was involved in The Wuppertal Cluster Alice and the new AliceNext, they cover all aspects of the clustering. Thus Partec will be renamed to Cluster Competence Center (3C or CCC). Additionally Partec will adapt open source software to Parastation. This can be for example parallel file systems like PVFS or Lustre, batch systems like OpenPBS, install and reinstall software, performance analysis and checkpoint/restart. This means implementing and fine tuning of the open source to a solution package. With partners Partec will bundle its own and its partners knowledge to support and to develop new features. The partners will be - the contracts will be signed in the near future: - CCC (Cluster Competence Center) - Research Center Jülich with its competence in computing and grids - University Karlsruhe, Prof. Tichy - University Wuppertal, the team around AliceNext Their target is to develop a high-productivity cluster and grid computing. Partec will be present at SC2004 in Pittsburgh at the Pathscale booth, one of its US partners. www.cluster-competence-center.de