DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /    ( Table of Contents )

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TCP LINDA NOW AVAILABLE FOR WINDOWS

Scientific Computing Associates Inc (SCIENTIFIC), a pioneer in the development of software for high performance parallel and distributed computing for 24 years, announced the release of its flagship product, TCP Linda, for Microsoft Windows clusters. Benchmarks on an IBM Windows based Departmental Supercomputing Solution, the HS20, demonstrate excellent performance and scalability.

"Microsoft is pleased to be partnering with Scientific Computing Associates and IBM to bring SCIENTIFIC'S unique, commercially supported TCP Linda parallel programming tools to users of Microsoft Windows operating systems," said Greg Rankich, High Performance Computing Solutions manager at Microsoft. "TCP Linda running on grids and clusters of Windows computers will promote the use of distributed and parallel computing in the mainstream computing world."

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TCP Linda gives users without expertise or training in parallel programming the ability to build new parallel applications or to "parallelize" existing sequential applications easily and intuitively. Well known for reliability and efficiency, TCP Linda technology is used in diverse applications areas such as life sciences, financial services, and the petroleum industry. TCP Linda provides a simple, yet complete command set which enables process creation, synchronization and communication. Every Linda software system employs powerful application optimization techniques and carefully tuned, architecture-specific run-time systems. Any program written in C or Fortran can be parallelized using just four simple TCP Linda operations.

David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale University, said regarding the availability of TCP Linda for Windows, "When distributed and parallel programming were highly specialized, technical, esoteric fields, then specialized, technical, esoteric tools were good enough. Today, networks are so important and computers so ubiquitous that everyone who builds software will need to deal with distributed and parallel programs. Tools for parallel and distributed programming now must be powerful, simple, and must qualify under the 'three-minute rule' -- which says that if a new software package takes more than three minutes to understand, forget it. TCP Linda qualifies, and SCIENTIFIC'S new system will lead distributed and parallel programming out of the dark, technical jungle into daylight."

Researchers have long preferred clustered servers for cost-effective solutions of large, complex, computationally intensive problems. TCP Linda for Windows permits researchers with Windows clusters, but perhaps with limited budgets and staff, to take advantage of the same supercomputing technology used by large organizations and prestigious labs while working within the familiar Windows environment.

"The combination of TCP Linda and Windows simplifies the transition by Windows users from traditional desktop computing to high performance computing," said Beverly Thalberg, president and CEO of Scientific Computing Associates. "TCP Linda is easy to learn and use. The ability to remain within the ubiquitous Windows environment while attaining the benefits of supercomputing on familiar COTS hardware is very attractive to the mass market."