Systems/Enterprise:
TACC SELECTS United Devices TO
DEVELOP MASSIVE CAMPUS GRID
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at
Austin (UT) and United Devices, Inc announced a partnership that will
significantly accelerate UT's academic computational research.
Through the partnership, TACC and United Devices will establish a
campus-scale
computing Grid at UT -- the largest university in the US -- that will utilize
United Devices' industry-leading Enterprise MetaProcessor software for
harnessing the under-utilized cycles of computers running either Windows or
Linux operating systems.
This campus Grid will enable applications that were previously relegated to
dedicated computer systems to run much faster on hundreds, and eventually
thousands, of computers in various departments and campus computer labs.
Projects that require compute-intensive simulations will be completed much
more rapidly, thereby having a tremendous impact on the progress of
leading-edge research.
Historically, TACC has deployed tightly coupled parallel computing systems
with tens to a few hundred processors connected by high-speed dedicated
networks.
"The United Devices software will add a new dimension to TACC's high-end
computing capabilities," said Jay Boisseau, Director of TACC. "We are excited
about offering this new kind of computational capability for the set of
scientific applications that do not require high-bandwidth networks but do
require thousands of processors."
"United Devices has a strong history of success in accelerating academic
research through our market-leading grid solutions," said United Devices
Director of Business Development & Strategic Relations, Piush Patel.
"The combination of our secure, scalable grid technology with TACC's
academic
research leadership will accelerate innovation for UT and the broader market."
The United Devices software has already been deployed and is being configured
to conduct several simulations.
"Installation was trivial and bullet-proof, and the ongoing maintenance and
operation of the United Devices software is equally easy," said Chris Hempel,
Associate Director for Advanced Systems at TACC.
"The United Devices grid solution will enable TACC to deploy a Grid that
includes a much greater number of the computing systems at UT."
TACC and United Devices will train the UT IT staff to install and manage
the United Devices software and will also train UT researchers to develop
applications that run on the UT grid.
Many campus researchers with important applications that will benefit from
the
speed and scope of this system have already been identified.
One such researcher is Doug Burger, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
at
UT, who said, "Our simulations evaluate the design space of future
microprocessors and systems as circuits are scaled down to near-atomic levels.
Due to the complexity of the devices, the size of the design space, and the
heavy interactions between the low-level circuits and the programs running on
them, the precision of these simulations is limited by the compute cycles
available.
The ability to harness the compute power of thousands of PCs across the UT
campus will greatly improve our current research and will open new doors in
the future."
TACC and United Devices also plan to explore research and development
issues
relating to computing on distributed compute Grids. Collaborative activities
include extending the United Devices software to manage other Grid software
packages, exploring new algorithms that utilize the UT Grid, and pursuing
joint applicaton development.
"Our relationship with TACC confirms United Devices' leadership position in
quickly and easily enabling third-party applications to run on our platform.
The result is a catapult system for applications making their way from a
leading research institution into the general market place," said United
Devices VP of Marketing, Paul Kirchoff.
According to Mary Thomas, Manager of the TACC Grid Computing Group, "It is
crucial that grid technologies function in heterogeneous environments if
they are to make the transition from theoretical ideas to real-world
tools.
The partnership between TACC and United Devices presents the opportunity
for
the development of reliable and useful software and further valuable joint
academic-industrial research."
About United Devices
United Devices is a leading provider of secure grid solutions. United
Devices'
MetaProcessor platform is used to aggregate compute resources on a network to
create an enterprise grid capable of running a wide range of high-performance
computing applications in academia, life sciences, geosciences, financial
services, and other industries.
http://www.ud.com
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