RETAIL

TROY, Mich., -- Altair Engineering Inc., a global leader in engineering, consulting and high performance computing technology, announced the launch of PBS Pro(TM) version 5.3 specifically designed for the improved utilization of IT resources and skills at enterprises with numerically intense computing environments. PBS Pro, originally developed to manage aerospace computing resources at the NASA Ames Research Center, is the leader in high performance workload management and the de-facto standard for batch queuing on LINUX clusters. The product intelligently queues and schedules computation workload across complex networks to optimize hardware and software utilization while minimizing job turn-around times. PBS Pro continues to be enhanced to take advantage of new computing platforms and Grid technologies. New platform support for PBS Pro version 5.3 includes: -- Intel Itanium 2 systems -- Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP -- Macintosh OS-X "Enterprises around the globe are increasingly adopting windows-based computer systems to run their Grid computing solutions," said Greg Rankich, HPC Product Manager of the Windows Server Group at Microsoft. "We are very excited to work with Altair Engineering in providing Windows customers a solution as robust and scalable as PBS Pro." PBS Pro has been integrated with Globus and associated with Grid computing for many years. PBS Pro version 5.3 includes enhanced Grid functionality for: -- Bi-directional support for Globus V2 -- Grid FTP via x509 certificates -- Peer scheduling "While our customers are working in a wide range of industries and using many popular hardware platforms, the common challenges they all face are their ability to take advantage of new technology and realize a ROI of these capital intensive investments," says Michael Humphrey, vice president of Altair Engineering's enterprise computing business unit. "PBS Pro v5.3 addresses these challenges by providing them with tools that allow them to increase company efficiencies, reduce cycle times and generate new revenue opportunities." Key product enhancements aimed at streamlining business processes in large enterprise deployments, include: -- Interoperation with Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) -- Floating licenses managed with FlexLM -- Enhanced accounting and jobs reporting package