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Azul Introduces First Network Attached Processing Solution

Azul Systems Inc introduced the industry's first network attached processing solution designed to provide unbound compute resources for Java and J2EE platform-based applications, a growing need according to industry analyst firm Gartner Group. Gartner estimates that by the end of 2008, more than 80 percent of all new eBusiness application development will be based on virtual machine environments, including the Java and J2EE platforms and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Driven by this change, Azul Systems developed its network attached processing solution to reduce the cost and complexity of delivering and managing compute resources in the most demanding data center environments.

"To date, server-side Java deployments have generally been constrained by CPU costs, the lack of large-scale parallel execution within a virtual machine, and the overhead of provisioning new Java applications to respond to peak demand," said Scott Dietzen, former CTO of BEA Systems. "Azul Systems compute pools have the potential of improving scalability and performance for today's application server platforms from Apache Tomcat to BEA WebLogic and IBM WebSphere as well as for Java enterprise applications."

The Azul Systems network attached processing solution will be delivered via three unique technologies:

Azul Systems compute pools are comprised of ultra-high capacity compute appliances. Based on innovative multi-core silicon technology, each compute appliance contains up to 384 coherent processor cores and 256GB of memory in a fully symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) system. Azul compute appliances are specially optimized for object-oriented languages and virtual machine based applications. A standard datacenter rack can house several appliances and more than 1,200 processor cores. Azul compute pools can be tapped by any Java or J2EE platform-based application in the datacenter without any application modifications, long-term binary or instruction set lock in. Elegantly packaged, this targeted design provides a small footprint, high rack density, low power consumption and simple administration.

With the introduction of network attached processing, which has roots in similar changes that occurred in storage and networking, the Azul Systems compute appliances will transform enterprise compute resources into virtually unbound pools of compute for J2EE platform-based applications built on top of today's leading application server platforms. This new approach does not require any application-level modifications, binary compatibility requirements or operating system dependencies. Network attached processing provides massive, shared compute capacity that can dynamically respond to changing workloads, eliminating capacity planning at the individual application level. By simply plugging Azul compute appliance into the network, customers will see dramatic improvements in performance and reduce overall IT costs and management complexity.

"Customers are transitioning from legacy development environments like C, C++ and COBOL to application virtual machine environments like Java, J2EE and .NET. These modern development environments expose a highly parallel, multi-threaded workload to underlying hardware. This opens up an opportunity to develop a new class of systems that solve real application scaling issues in an easy to manage fashion," said Stephen DeWitt, president and CEO of Azul Systems. "Our vision is not to reinvent the past, but to look toward the future and fundamentally change the manner in which the function of compute is delivered and its associated economics."