SGI Demonstrates 'Out-Compute to Out-Compete' Technology at Supercomputing Conference 2004

Silicon Graphics is demonstrating how its compute, storage and visualization solutions are destroying the conventions of high-performance computing (HPC).





SGI returns to SC2004 after toppling Japan's Earth Simulator from its perch as the world's fastest supercomputer with the historic 10,240-processor NASA Columbia system, an achievement made all the more significant in that the supercomputer, built from 20 SGI® Altix® systems, was built and fully deployed at NASA in only 15 weeks.

Defying the accepted norms of traditional HPC solutions, SGI systems are based on industry-standard technologies and components, such as Intel® Itanium® 2 processors and a 64-bit Linux® operating environment. As a result, SGI® systems are perennial price/performance leaders that can be deployed rapidly so innovators in government, homeland security, scientific research, pharmaceutical, energy, aerospace and manufacturing markets can address the world's most demanding challenges. Worldwide customer acceptance of SGI solutions continues to escalate, while SGI products recently secured a record eight HPCwire Innovation Awards from the journal's editors and readers.

Groundbreaking Technology on Display at SGI Booth

At the SGI Booth (No. 1311), SC2004 attendees will witness the latest and most advanced compute, storage and visualization products from SGI.

-- Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), which recently chose a 16-processor Altix(R) 350 system as a host computer of its MDGRAPE-3 system, will demonstrate this low-cost high-performance accelerator for protein modeling.

-- YottaYotta will demonstrate live a new paradigm for lowering storage costs and increasing productivity among geographically distributed computing environments deploying the SGI® InfiniteStorage Shared Filesystem CXFS™ and Data Lifecycle Management Solution with YottaYotta's GSX 2400 NetStorager®.

-- The Integrated Workflow area in SGI's booth demonstrates the power of combining HPC (Altix 350), Visualization (Silicon Graphics Prism™ and Visual Area Networking) and Storage (SGI InfiniteStorage CXFS) into a data-centric computing model.

-- SGI will participate in SC2004's StorCloud initiative, comprising state-of-the-art heterogeneous devices and technology to build a virtual on-site "storage on request" area network capability to support researchers and demonstrate high-bandwidth applications at the conference.

-- Along with the existing SGI Altix server and supercomputer line, SGI will publicly unveil its Altix(R) 3700 Bx2 system. The new model doubles the bandwidth, compute density and price/performance of previous Altix 3700 servers. SGI also will demonstrate an Altix 350 system cluster via Voltaire Infiniband.

-- SGI InfiniteStorage demonstrations address workflow within intelligent consolidation, data lifecycle management and data protection. Demonstrations will include file serving, heterogeneous SAN and CXFS, DLM Server, new and pre-release products, customer-based big data over a WAN, and several partner collaborations.

-- SGI will debut to the HPC community the new Silicon Graphics Prism, a complete, advanced visualization system that combines standards-based Intel Itanium 2 processors and the Linux operating environment with SGI's world-renowned advanced graphics. Demonstrations include Visual Area Networking.

-- Based on the success of SGI's highly scalable NUMAflex architecture, SGI will demonstrate development work on melding its powerful NUMAlink interconnect technology with the flexible, efficient, and reconfigurable processing power offered by today's FPGA technologies.

Throughout the SGI booth and all SC2004 activities, SGI will also highlight the contributions of key partners who have helped drive the success of the company's HPC solutions in the scientific, research and engineering markets. These partners include:

-- Intel
-- Christie
-- SGI User Group
-- Engenio
-- Dataram
-- S2io
-- Transact in Memory
-- Novell
-- Xcelerix
-- Brocade
-- Objectivity
-- Versant

Conference Sessions to Inspire Innovation

SGI speakers will present a wide range of discussions, Birds of a Feather (BOF) presentations, and technical sessions throughout the conference. Highlights include:

-- "Enabling Terabyte-Scale Grid Computing" (Tuesday, 12:15 p.m. Convention Center Room 302)

-- "Linux Visualization - Holistic Approaches to Understanding Terascale Data Sets" (Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. Convention Center Room 315-316)

-- "Project Columbia: The Promise of New Science" (Wednesday, 12:15 Convention Center Room 302)

-- "HPC in the Automotive World" (Wednesday, 12:15 p.m. Convention Center Room 324)

-- "Customer Experiences Using the SGI Altix Supercluster" (Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. Convention Center Room 317-318)

-- "Computational Requirements and Scalability Considerations for CAE Applications in the Automotive Industry" (Thursday, 4:15 p.m. Convention Center Room 303-305)

Source: press release





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