TROY, Mich., May 1 -- Altair Engineering Inc., a leading global provider of technology and services that empower innovation and decision-making, today announced that FedStage Systems has released the Distributed Resource Management Application API (DRMAA) for PBS Professional, an open source implementation of the Open Grid Forum's DRMAA 1.0 specification. The standardized interface of the new API facilitates the development of applications based on the DRMAA standard.

"We welcome the emerging DRMAA standard and the new FedStage DRMAA implementation, and the potential they represent for PBS Professional customers and developers," said Bill Nitzberg, CTO of PBS GridWorks and one of the authors of the DRMAA standard. "Altair has been proactive in standards development from the beginning. The original PBS product was based on the first standard for workload management, and that standardization was carried out by the PBS founding group.

"Altair has always believed that customers should have the ability to choose the best software for their work, and standards like DRMAA 1.0 are a way of giving them that opportunity."

The new API will enable PBS Professional users to write applications for grid environments more easily and efficiently, with shorter integration times.

"As an ISV we are happy to push open-grid and HPC standards to the market and to offer this new product," said Piotr Domagalski, product manager of FedStage Systems. "This standard job submission and control interface will simplify and improve the way many legacy applications, portals and external systems are integrated with PBS products.

"Our new product fits perfectly into the FedStage Systems business strategy to provide professional support and open-source software solutions that add value to well known HPC platforms such as PBS Professional. Anyone who is using PBS Pro can now download FedStage DRMAA for PBS Pro and start playing with a set of useful and well defined APIs."

"We're very pleased that FedStage Systems has already taken the initiative to integrate PBS Professional with the DRMMA API," said Robert Walsh, director of business development for PBS GridWorks. "This is a great first step in the creation of a widely accepted industry standard.

"The industry is now looking ahead to the next generation of supercomputers. We're focused on providing our customers with innovative tools for these developing technologies, and we will continue to serve as a leader of the Open Grid Forum."

About Altair Engineering

Altair Engineering Inc. empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held with more than 1,400 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 20-year-plus track record for product design, advanced engineering software and grid computing technologies, Altair consistently delivers a competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn more, visit www.altair.com.

About PBS GridWorks

Altair's PBS GridWorks is a suite of on-demand grid computing technologies that allows enterprises to maximize ROI on computing infrastructure assets. PBS GridWorks is the most widely implemented software environment for grid-, cluster- and on-demand computing worldwide. The suite's flagship product, PBS Professional, provides a flexible, on-demand computing environment that allows enterprises to easily share diverse (heterogeneous) computing resources across geographic boundaries. www.pbsgridworks.com

About FedStage Systems

FedStage Systems provides a broad portfolio of high-performance computing services, tools, Web 2.0 applications and mobile products designed to meet today's demanding grid computing, HPC and cross-enterprise IT integration needs. FedStage Systems implements the most relevant SOA and Grid industry standards and best-practices, giving both companies and their customers true portability and maximum opportunity for growth.

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Source: Altair Engineering Inc.