NETWORKS

Level 5 Networks, a leading developer of high-speed Ethernet server interconnect solutions, today announced that Sun Microsystems will make Level 5 Networks EtherFabric cards available to their customers through their Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program. Level 5 Networks also announced support for the Sun Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) and is demonstrating EtherFabric for the Solaris OS running on an x86 platform at the SCO5 trade show, in booth #2213. Level 5 Networks previewed their high performance Ethernet-base solution to Sun customers at the recent Sun HPC Consortium. Now, Sun customers can immediately increase the performance of their Sun servers and accelerate the applications running on them without the risk of implementing non-standard niche interconnect solutions. "Sun and Level 5 Networks share a common commitment to deliver high performance network computing solutions that reduce cost and complexity for our customers," said Bjorn Andersson, director, HPC and Grid Computing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Coupled with Sun's high performance servers, Level 5 Networks EtherFabric cards can deliver significant performance gains while preserving our customers' investment in Ethernet infrastructure." The decision to make EtherFabric available directly via Sun's Customer Ready Systems program addresses the market need and subsequent growth of high performance computing. HPC clusters process large amounts of data and consume server resources to solve complex, numerically intensive problems. Traditionally the domain of engineers, physicists, astronomers and other scientists solving grand challenge problems, recent trends in technology and in the enterprise are increasing the scope of application of HPC tremendously. By supporting EtherFabric in the Sun-based HPC clusters, Sun customers are better able to utilize their existing computer resources, resulting in increased productivity and improved return on their investment in IT infrastructure. "Level 5 is driving the future of HPC by delivering dramatic application performance while maintaining full compatibility with existing IT infrastructures," said Dan Karr, chief executive officer of Level 5 Networks. "This initiative with Sun Microsystems makes our EtherFabric solution available to Sun users and immediately brings the full potential of high performance computing to Sun data centers." EtherFabric accelerates the performance of networked applications on HPC clusters using standard Ethernet and TCP/IP networking protocols. The standards-based EtherFabric solution is compatible with existing applications and increases application performance and computational throughput without expensive new hardware and risky software changes. Other non-standard high performance networking solutions, by contrast, require changes to both hardware and software. EtherFabric enhances data center performance and lets Sun customers optimize their existing IT infrastructure to maximize the investment in their high-performance servers that support the computing-intensive demands in industries such as life sciences, automotive, financial services and others. Advantages of deploying Sun servers with EtherFabric: * Enables applications to fully leverage multi-CPU/core Sun servers * Accelerates the performance and improves efficiency of applications running on Sun Server clusters and storage systems * Increases productivity and cuts time to market * Provides a total solution to fully comply with industry standards; is a simple upgrade to existing IT operations * Optimizes investments in Sun infrastructure, lowers the total cost of ownership and improves capital lifecycle "This agreement is a great opportunity for Level 5 Networks," said Anne MacFarland, director of infrastructure architectures and solutions at The Clipper Group, a New England-based IT analysis firm. "Level 5 Networks offers a way to use existing Ethernet connectivity, but alleviates the high CPU loading that can constrain the performance of many traditional Ethernet systems. Level 5 brings more performance to compute-intensive applications, and more scalability to the server clusters on which such applications run."