INDUSTRY

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – SGI Federal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SGI (NYSE: SGI), a leading provider of high-performance computing and visualization solutions, has teamed up with Linux cluster computing expert Linux NetworX to win a bid to build three Parallel Capacity Resource (PCR) Linux cluster computing systems totaling 472 Pentium 4 processors for the National Nuclear Security Administration's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) ongoing computing element. With a theoretical peak performance of 857 gigaFLOP/s, the largest of the three systems with 252 Pentium 4 processors, named PCR P4A, will be one the fastest Linux clusters ever built. In its latest effort to boost parallel capacity computing power for ASCI's ongoing computing element, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will have two of the three Linux clusters working on the project, while a third will be used as a joint development cluster with Linux NetworX and SGI Federal for open source projects. ASCI is a ten-year program to reach 100-trillion calculations per second by 2005 that will enable scientists at the national-security laboratory to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile by simulating -- in three dimensions -- the aging and operation of nuclear weapons. "The clustering expertise and management tools delivered by Linux NetworX along with SGI Federal's project management background and support infrastructure created a very powerful and cost-effective solution to meet our requirements," said Dr. Mark Seager, LLNL's Asst. Dept. Head for TeraScale Systems. "As LLNL continues to add to parallel capacity resources cluster management becomes a more critical issue, which is why we required the ICE Box(TM) management tool from Linux NetworX." Linux NetworX designed and built the world's first commercial Linux cluster in 1997, and has developed cluster management tools to make systems easier to manage. In the request for proposal, LLNL required a specific Linux NetworX cluster management tool, called ICE Box(TM), which is being previewed for the first time at LinuxWorld Expo. For further information visit www.linuxnetworx.com or www.sgi.com