PathScale, developer of innovative software and hardware solutions to accelerate the performance and efficiency of Linux clusters including the InfiniPath low-latency InfiniBand interconnect, has joined the OpenIB Alliance. The OpenIB Alliance is a consortium dedicated to delivering a single open source Linux software stack for deployment of the InfiniBand architecture. InfiniBand has emerged as the superior solution for high performance computing (HPC) applications when compared to traditional and proprietary interconnect technologies in terms of bandwidth, scalability and message-passing capabilities. PathScale also announced that it will support the full OpenIB software stack on its ultra low-latency InfiniPath interconnect. This means that PathScale InfiniPath will shortly become the first standards-compliant interconnect that offers both lower latency and higher bandwidth than the existing niche proprietary cluster interconnects. Johann George, Technology Strategist in the Office of the CTO at PathScale, will serve as a member of the OpenIB Board of Directors. "PathScale believes that a mature, reliable and scalable InfiniBand software environment is critically important to the industry and that's why we're committed to having a robust OpenIB implementation working with InfiniPath," George said. "OpenIB standards will increase the adoption of InfiniBand technology and vastly simplify the porting of applications to InfiniBand." PathScale has developed the industry's lowest latency InfiniBand-compatible cluster interconnect technology enabling HPC applications to scale to unprecedented levels. PathScale's InfiniPath interconnect delivers SMP-class performance to commodity-priced compute clusters to increase MPI application performance, cluster utilization and user productivity. InfiniPath directly connects to AMD Opteron servers via the HyperTransport interface and connects to external nodes via standard InfiniBand switching. "OpenIB is a collaborative effort to develop a single open source software stack among leading vendors and research organizations. It will enable customers to realize the full potential of InfiniBand and it will ensure consistency and interoperability between the various InfiniBand switch and host adapter products," explained Bill Boas, Vice-Chairman of the OpenIB Alliance. "PathScale will be a strong technical voice in this initiative and a great asset in contributing to the OpenIB stack's functionality and reliability." Background: The OpenIB Alliance is an industry association chartered to deliver a single, open-source Linux-based and Windows-based software stack for deploying InfiniBand. Founded in June 2004, the OpenIB Alliance is comprised of technology vendors and end-user organizations including: Data Direct Networks, Inc.; Dell; Engenio Information Technologies, Inc.; InfiniCon; Intel; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Linux Networx; Mellanox Technologies; Network Appliance; Oracle; PathScale; Rackable Systems, Inc.; Sandia National Laboratories; Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI); Sun Microsystems, Inc.; Supermicro Computer; Topspin Communications; Veritas; and Voltaire. More information about the OpenIB Alliance is available at www.openib.org. Based in Mountain View, California, PathScale develops innovative software and hardware technologies that substantially increase the performance and efficiency of Linux clusters, the next significant wave in high-end computing. Applications that benefit from PathScale's technologies include seismic processing, complex physical modeling, EDA simulation, molecular modeling, biosciences, econometric modeling, computational chemistry, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, weather modeling, resource optimization, decision support and data mining. PathScale's investors include Adams Street Partners, Charles River Ventures, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, CMEA Ventures, ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures and the Dow Employees Pension Plan. For more details, visit its Website, send email to sales@pathscale.com or telephone 1-650-934-8100.