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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / SEPTEMBER 8, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 36
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Systems/Enterprise:
INTEL JOINS PALLAS TO STRENGTHEN
GRIP ON GRID ARENA
Intel has recently made efforts to acquire Pallas, a German software maker,
in
hopes that the venture will strengthen its grip on the grid arena.
Intel, expecting to close the deal this September, will be joined by 23
Pallas
engineers to improve its HPC and grid computing endeavors, according to an
Intel spokesman.
Intel's position in the high performance and technical computing markets
has
skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Its powerful Xeon processor, for
example, allows labs and private sector businesses to use clusters of small
servers (instead of expensive SMPs) for tough computing applications. Though
they may lack certain qualities of a higher end kit, the one and two-way Xeon
boxes are inexpensive and fast. A cluster may very well be the best bet if the
software can be chopped up and crunched in parallel.
Pallas' Vampir and Vampirtrace suites are designed to check on how well
parallel, distributed memory systems are performing. Whether its a cluster
sitting in one room or a grid of computer linked via several sites, Pallas
monitors overall system performance. The Vampir 3.0 product, for example,
checks on applications processing times, load balancing, subroutine and code
block performance and message passing.
These tools should help Intel, its ISVs and hardware partners evaluate code
running in a cluster. Similar software from Pallas is also on the way for SMPs
-- a plus for the Xeon and Itanium crowd.
"Intel has always put a lot of energy into helping people use their systems
effectively at the platform level," said Gordon Haff, an analyst at
Illuminata. "This is a pretty logical extension. It's not really 'clustering'
per se but rather using Intel systems effectively in clustered
environments."
It's not immediately clear what will happen to Pallas' firewall, server
hosting and content management businesses. Intel said it wants the HPC folks
only. Those 23 individuals will continue to reside in Bruehl, Germany.
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