SYSTEMS

Verari Systems Software, the leading independent provider of high-performance middleware products and related services for parallel and cluster computers, announced that it has deployed a high performance computing cluster at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) consisting of 512 compute nodes running Red Hat 9 and connected with Myrinet. Named Cosmos, the cluster has a theoretical peak performance of 6.554 teraflops and is ranked 37th on the Top 500 List of supercomputers announced on November 9, 2004. Cosmos will be used in research and will provide high-end computing support for many different complex engineering and science activities, including earth and space science research, as well as for spacecraft engineering and design. Verari Systems Software has already obtained an HPL/Top500 benchmark result of 4.298 teraflops yielding 66% of peak efficiency. Verari Systems Software enabled the JPL cluster through services that incorporate Verari Systems Software’s Felix and MPI/Pro software. These packages enable the creation of a high-performance, production-computing cluster of dual-processor servers. Verari Systems Software’s ChaMPIon/Pro was used in the HPL benchmarking result. ChaMPIon/Pro is a thread safe, high-performance, scalable MPI implementation that provides the complete MPI-2 function set, including a native implementation of the parallel file I/O API. ChaMPIon/Pro supports high-speed networks such as Myrinet, InfiniBand and Quadrics, as well as traditional transports, such as TCP/IP over Gigabit Ethernet. ChaMPIon/Pro strives to minimize application runtime, while balancing performance criteria and resource utilization. Verari Systems Software’s line of MPI middleware products MPI/Pro and ChaMPIon/Pro outperform freeware on many applications and platforms by up to 30%, thus giving JPL the opportunity to utilize the computing resources of Cosmos in the most efficient manner. Robustness and reliability are other key features of MPI/Pro and ChaMPIon/Pro, enabling JPL to support long-running applications that process large scientific problems in 24/7 production environments. For more information on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, please visit www.jpl.nasa.gov.