Foundry Networks, a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching, routing and application Web switching, today announced that Microsoft will work with Foundry to deliver high-performance computing (HPC) solutions as part of Foundry's HPC Ethernet Alliance Program. Foundry's HPC Ethernet Alliance Program is designed to accelerate and promote the deployment of high-performance Ethernet solutions in HPC and cluster computing environments. As part of the Foundry HPC Ethernet Alliance Program, Foundry and Microsoft will work together in the following areas: -- Interoperability testing and benchmarking of Foundry's Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches with Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 to provide customers with seamless integration and optimized cluster performance. -- Cooperative marketing to promote the use of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 using Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet interconnects in HPC and Enterprise environments. "Microsoft is pleased to be part of Foundry's HPC Ethernet Alliance program," said Kyril Faenov, director of high performance computing, Microsoft Corp. "Combined, Ethernet and Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 architectures present an attractive solution for enterprise customers who need the power of high performance computing without the high cost of specialized systems. The Alliance is an important part of Microsoft's focus on open, standards-based solutions." "Microsoft's participation in the Alliance marks the beginning of a new era in high performance computing. The combination of Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Foundry's high-performance Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching systems will facilitate deployment of cluster computing in HPC environments as well as in enterprise data centers," said Mark Danckert, director of alliances for Foundry Networks. "We anticipate a proliferation of new applications to be developed as a result of Microsoft's new offering and will work with Microsoft so that the underlying switched infrastructure delivers the resilience, scalability and performance to support advanced high performance computing applications."