HPC advances in Florida

Firms put their might behind high-performance computing

At it’s Supercomputing event in Florida, HP, The MathWorks and Sun all detailed enhancements to their high-performance computing (HPC) hardware and software ranges.

HP announced additions to its Unified Cluster Portfolio, concentrating on adding new quad-core Intel Xeon 5300 series processors. The Cluster Platform 3000 system now runs ProLiant servers with quad-core technology, which enables better performance and energy efficiency, said the vendor.

The Scalable Visualisation Array will also now be able to use HP's Parallel Compositing Library and the associated API to ease development of applications using parallel processing.

Also at the event, Sun announced its new HPC Quick Start services range, aimed at helping customers to design and manage their own HPC datacentres. To support these services, the vendor launched its Sun Blade 8000 P, a blade server rigged for x64 cluster and grid computing; a new x64 workstation, the Ultra 40 M2; and an HPC Visualisation System.

Sun also announced an expanded relationship with NEC, whereby NEC will enhance its HPC portfolio by selling Sun Fire servers.

Elsewhere, HPC software vendor The MathWorks introduced its Distributed Computing Toolbox 3, which it said simplified parallel algorithm development for firms requiring compute and data-intensive problems such as financial modelling.

"Since we don't use low-level programming languages like Fortran, C or the Message Passing Interface normally used in parallel HPC computations, this allows staff with less programming experience to bypass having to code specific instructions to make systems compute in parallel,” said Lisa Kempler, MathWorks’ product marketing manager. “This leaves them free to tackle problems quicker."

Distributed Computing Toolbox 3 requires the Distributed Computing Engine and can run on Windows, Solaris, UNIX, Linux and Macintosh systems. Prices start at £800 + VAT for the Toolbox and £4,800 + VAT for the engine.