MANUFACTURING

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Force10 Networks, Inc., the leading developer of high performance Ethernet systems, today announced that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) of Pasadena, CA, is using the Force10 E-Series(TM), the most scalable and highest performing Ethernet switch/routers in the industry, in its grid computing network. The E-Series is connecting the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) to the TeraGrid project, the world's largest supercomputing grid, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Force10 has already won business with the National Center For Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC). Research groups such as Caltech's CACR are driving the creation of cluster grid computing, the next IT revolution. Ultimately, computational grids will allow users to access enormous "virtual supercomputers" -- computers at different locations linked together to work as one -- that will provide CPU cycles on demand. The NSF TeraGrid project will initially use a dedicated 40Gbps wide area "backplane" to connect computers, storage facilities, visualization systems and applications at Caltech and other TeraGrid sites to create the largest, most comprehensive grid computing environment for open scientific research in the United States. Clusters connected over this grid are being built using 10GE interconnections between Gigabit Ethernet-attached Linux server clusters. The E-Series has the density and non-blocking performance needed to interconnect thousands of servers, and the L3 robustness to provide scalable, controlled access to them. "The E-Series was chosen because it provides full 10 Gigabit performance on the 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports," said James C.T. Pool, CACR's executive director. "The E-Series allows us to aggregate all of our Gigabit Ethernet- attached Linux systems."