Alta Technology Announces Rackmount Linux Cluster Modules

Alta Technology's AltaCluster systems are now available as rack-mountable cluster modules (R-Cluster). R-Cluster modules are available using Intel's Pentium III, AMD's K7, or Compaq's Alpha processor, providing users with a variety of price and performance choices. The R-Cluster combines scalable performance and management capabilities to form multi-processor systems. Implementing standard PCI technology and the Linux operating system, R-Cluster technology provides supercomputer performance at a lower cost of ownership.

Clark Roundy, vice president of marketing and sales at Alta Technology, commented, "In addition to cost savings over conventional supercomputers, a major advantage of the R-Cluster system is its scalability." As a company grows and the need for greater performance is increased, more nodes are easily added to the system. He continues, "However, as many clustered system users have found, lower price does not always justify the use of a clustered system. System usability, reliability, and the overall cost of administering and maintaining a clustered system are important factors in choosing a system platform. Alta's focus is to provide a platform that reduces the total cost of ownership and not just the initial cost."

Alta has devoted a great deal of R&D effort in developing a platform that facilitates a user friendly system environment. The result of this effort is the Alta Cluster Environment (ACE). ACE provides temperature monitoring of individual processors, remote reset of nodes, power sequencing, disk cloning, advanced failure notification capabilities, and various other system utilities.

R-Cluster system configurations provide up to eight 4U compute modules or sixteen 2U compute modules in a standard 40U rack- complete with 10/100 Ethernet network switch, and the ACE control system. Individual modules are available with 1 or 2 processors and come complete with hard drive and memory (up to 1 GB per node). Systems are flexible and allow for configuration options such as Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, and multiple 10/100 networks; or the addition of RAID or SAN storage subsystems. R-Clusters are stackable and scalable from 1 to 1000's of processors.

R-Cluster systems implement Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) technology, facilitating the creation of a scalable architecture capable of efficient parallel processing. The R-Cluster may also be equipped with PBS for batch job scheduling, Mosex for cluster load balancing, and Global File System (GFS) a network attached storage system. Systems can be used as virtual servers, high availability systems, render farms, or can be application specific.

For more information, visit Alta's web site at http://www.altatech.com.