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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JUNE 30, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 26
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Special Features:
TACC ESTABLISHES GRID
RELATIONSHIP WITH SUN
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at
Austin has established a relationship with Sun Microsystems to extend the
process of scientific discovery through advanced visualization and grid
technologies.
Visualization is a vital part of the scientific discovery process, and TACC
will work together with Sun to develop and provide solutions to address the
growing need for visualizing terascale data sets. TACC will deploy a Sun
Terascale Visualization System that combines Sun FireTM servers with large
amounts of shared memory, next-generation graphics pipes and processors, and a
high-speed interconnect. The Sun system will provide powerful analysis and
rendering capabilities that are needed for current and future research
applications. TACC research and development activities in visualization will
target these new high-end systems, augmenting their capabilities for terascale
data analysis. Furthermore, TACC and Sun will jointly develop grid
technologies to enable interactive remote and collaborative visualization.
"We are excited about this opportunity to team with Sun Microsystems. The
Sun
Terascale Visualization System will provide a powerful alternative to the
commodity visualization clusters. There are multiple classes of algorithms
that require large amounts of shared memory and a high-bandwidth interconnect,
including perspective volume rendering and real-time ray tracing of
unstructured terascale data sets, real-time terrain mapping, and computational
steering of finite element applications. This collaboration will offer not
only a world-class set of resources, but will allow TACC and Sun Microsystems
to work together on research and development issues relevant to data intensive
computing, grid computing, and scientific visualization," said Kelly Gaither,
Associate Director of TACC.
The Sun Terascale Visualization will be fully deployed at TACC in the
summer
of 2004. Ultimately, the system will have more than half a terabyte of memory
and a projected rendering capability of more than one billion polygons per
second. A smaller initial system will be deployed in July 2003 in order to
begin joint research and development activities in visualization and in grid
computing, using SunTM ONE Grid Engine software.
"The relationship between Texas Advanced Computing Center and Sun
Microsystems
will yield tremendous results in the areas of scientific visualization and
grid computing," said Kim Jones, vice president of Global Education and
Research for Sun Microsystems. "The Sun Fire servers combined with Sun's Grid
Engine software provide a strong foundation for tremendous storage capability,
powerful analytic data, and compelling visual information to address the most
challenging problems that our nation's academic research community is tackling
today."
About Texas Advanced Computing Center
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) is the fastest growing academic
advanced computing facility in the nation. TACC provides advanced computing
resources and services to enable computationally-intensive research and
conducts research and development activities to develop new computing
techniques and technologies. TACC's mission is to enhance the capabilities of
researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and its partners through the
application of advanced computing resources and expertise. More information
on TACC is available at www.tacc.utexas.edu.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The
Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. to its position as a leading
provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the
Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide
Web at sun.com.
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