SCIENCE

Appro Xtreme-X based on scalable clusters delivers 6TF to >1000TF on a managed, reliable and green architecture to meet demands of High Performance Computing: Appro, a leading provider of high-performance enterprise computing systems, today announced it will introduce and showcase its new Appro Xtreme-X1, part of its new Xtreme-X Supercomputer Series at the Appro booth #714 during Supercomputer 2007, the world’s largest supercomputing exposition held in Reno, Nevada from November 10-16. Formal presentations and live demonstrations will be available. The Appro Xtreme-X Series represents a next-generation platform based on scalable clusters that brings all of the advantages of the company's expertise in high-performance computing (HPC) to a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and scalable supercomputer. The Xtreme-X1 is the first in the Series, and is based on dual-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processors. Appro plans to introduce the X2 model based on AMD Opteron Processors in the first half of 2008. The Xtreme-X Supercomputer Series is designed to scale out datacenters for medium to large-scale enterprises and HPC deployments ranging from 6TF to >1000TF of computing power. The Xtreme-X delivers significantly reduced TCO in an energy-efficient (green) architecture, and has a complete lights-out management solution to meet the demands of high capacity and enterprise production system availability. “The Appro Xtreme-X1 combines the power of Intel’s 64-bit Xeon processors with a well balanced high performance computing architecture,” said Jim Ballew, CTO of Appro. “This combination delivers outstanding performance, scalability, availability, and manageability based on a high-bandwidth and low-latency infrastructure required for today’s capacity computing and production system availability requirements.” The Appro Xtreme-X1 offers a high value and attractive price/performance package with a significantly reduced TCO for HPC IT organizations. It features a reliable and scalable architecture with 128 nodes/512 Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors and 6TF of computing power in a single 42U equipment rack. It offers 4TB of memory, hot-swappable blades, redundant cooling fans, and efficient “Power-Factor-Corrected” power supplies. Appro’s Xtreme-X1 Supercomputer also features a new Directed Airflow cooling configuration designed to reduce datacenter floor space by 30% while maximizing power and cooling efficiency. In addition, it features redundant (Dual Rail) Infiniband connections with low latency Mellanox ConnectX host channel adapters as well as Ethernet management fabric and network switches with all critical components being easily accessible, hot-swappable, and redundant for reliability and serviceability. The Appro Xtreme-X1 Supercomputer is ideal for demanding applications that require higher reliability and better system management in HPC. To accompany this new series, Appro is introducing Xtreme-X Services, delivering closed-loop solution management, up-front consulting, pre-integration and testing with pre-sales and post-sales support. Appro’s Xtreme-X Services will support Linux operating environments, with configurations that provide exceptional performance across a wide range of HPC applications such as electronic design automation, aerospace and automotive engineering simulations, petroleum exploration and production, scientific visualization for oil discovery and recovery, research in seismic, weather and environmental sciences, defense and classified research/production, and financial modeling and risk management. "Appro's new Xtreme-X Supercomputer Series is focused on addressing the HPC cluster market which is growing by over 30% a year and already exceeds 60% of all HPC server sales. Appro is focusing its product design to address key customer requirements including system management concerns and price/performance on user applications in large-scale cluster environments," said Steve Conway, research vice president, Technical Computing, IDC. Essential to the Xtreme-X Series achieving immediate productivity is the Appro Cluster Engine Software Management; a carefully layered architecture offering a complete lights-out management solution that comes pre-installed with every system. This software suite offers a web-based management interface that is easy-to-use, making it possible to control the Appro Xtreme-X system from any location. The management modules include Fabric Management, Server Management, Cluster Management and Resource Management. In addition, it supports multiple networking topologies to achieve maximum reliability, performance and high availability to include diskless configuration and network failover. It supports root file systems providing scalability for rapid, standard Linux installs on large diskless systems allowing them to boot 100 to 1,000 blades in about the same time. The Appro Cluster Engine Software Management offers a complete reliable, highly available and serviceable architecture that supports scalability with multi-network configurations. Appro Xtreme-X1 Supercomputer will be available in December 2007 with configurations starting at 128 nodes, Dual or Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors per rack cabinet. Pricing information may vary by system configuration. Please contact an Appro sales representative for more information.