Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 11:02:02 -0800
To: lwn@lwn.net
From: John Elias <jelias@kvo.com>
Subject: SGI demo's Itanium cluster


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


INDUSTRY LEADERS SPEAK OUT
ON FUTURE OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
AT SUPERCOMPUTING '99 CONFERENCE 

SGI Demonstrates First Clustering Technology Based on Intel 
Itanium(TM) Processor, Marking Critical Turning Point in 
Computer Industry

SUPERCOMPUTING '99, PORTLAND, Ore. (Nov. 15, 1999) - SGI 
(NYSE: SGI) today hosted a special session at the 
SuperComputing '99 conference on the future of high-
performance computing and demonstrated the first-ever 
cluster based on the Intel(R) IA-64 Itanium(TM) processor. 
The event featured speakers from the National Computational 
Science Alliance, Intel Corporation and SGI.

"The high-performance computing community is at a critical 
juncture in its history. The community will either continue 
down its familiar path of company proprietary software and 
RISC processor building blocks or begin to move toward a new 
model of high-performance computing based on commodity, 
high-volume parts and common software building blocks," said 
Larry Smarr, Director, National Computational Science 
Alliance and its leading-edge site, the National Center for 
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). "The NCSA will 
aggressively pursue this new model."

Smarr was recently designated by the President's Information 
Technology Advisory Council (PITAC) to lead a subcommittee 
study of open source HPC software. In this role, Smarr will 
oversee an investigation into the potential of the open 
source model and will make recommendations to PITAC based on 
his findings. "The model of high-performance computing using 
standard computing building blocks offers a compelling 
vision of lower computing costs and accelerated innovation, 
but it means organizing the community in a radical new 
fashion. This could be a defining year," said Smarr.

Smarr spoke at the event along with Stephen L. Smith, Vice 
President, IA-64 Products Division, Intel Corporation, and 
John R. "Beau" Vrolyk, Senior Vice President, Product Group, 
SGI. In addition, a demonstration of a cluster of Itanium 
processor-based systems running Linux(R) provided an early 
glimpse at the future of high-performance computing. This 
demonstration achieved a number of public firsts, including 
the first Itanium processor-based cluster and the first 
technical computing application successfully run on the 
Linux platform for IA-64. 

IA-64 Brings High-Volume Economics to High-Performance Computing
The Intel Itanium processor will provide scalability, 
floating-point performance and architectural features to 
address the needs of the high-performance computing market 
and e-business applications with the price/performance 
advantages of industry-standard components.

"Today's demonstration of an Itanium processor-based cluster 
exemplifies the great progress and major program milestones 
the industry is achieving with our IA-64 architecture and 
Itanium processor," said Smith. "Our clustering efforts with 
the industry will enable breakthrough levels of performance, 
scalability and availability from Itanium processor-based 
servers and workstations in the second half of 2000."

Scalable Computing Based on Standards and Open Software
The technology demonstration on the Itanium processor-based 
cluster was comprised entirely of open source software, 
including Cactus (a general simulation toolkit that will be 
computing collisions of black holes), 64-bit Linux kernel 
(based on the porting effort of Project Trillian), NFS(TM), 
and MPICH, with visualization by Amira on an IA-32 node. SGI 
views open source solutions on IA-64 platforms as a means to 
accelerate the arrival of faster, more affordable and more 
accessible technical computing solutions.

"SGI firmly believes that solutions based on the 
capabilities of Intel Itanium processors and open software 
will lead to radical advances in high-performance 
computing," said Vrolyk, SGI. "From advanced, high-
performance clustered systems to highly scalable, shared 
memory and vector systems, SGI solutions uniquely serve the 
specialized computing requirements across technical markets. 
We see open source software as a means to furthering 
innovation and extending the use of industry-standard 
components." 

About the NCSA
The National Computational Science Alliance is a partnership 
to prototype an advanced computational infrastructure for 
the 21st century and includes more than 50 academic, 
government and industry research partners from across the 
United States. The Alliance is one of two partnerships 
funded by the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for 
Advanced Computational Infrastructure (PACI) program and 
receives cost-sharing at partner institutions.

The NCSA is the leading-edge site for the National 
Computational Science Alliance. The NCSA is a leader in the 
development and deployment of cutting-edge, high-performance 
computing, networking and information technologies. The 
National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the 
University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other 
federal agencies fund the NCSA.

About SGI
SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and 
advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to 
understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. 
Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices 
worldwide, the company is located on the Web at www.sgi.com.
SGI and the SGI logo are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, 
Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. 
Intel is a registered trademark, and Itanium is a trademark 
of Intel Corporation. NFS is a trademark of Sun 
Microsystems, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are 
the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact:			
Scott Blevins, SGI       John Elias, KVO Public Relations
(650) 933-8817           (650) 919-2023
blevins@corp.sgi.com	     jelias@kvo.com

SGI PR Hotline:          SGI PR Fax:
650.933.7777             650.932.0737