Cluster Computing:

CLUSTER-COMPUTING SOFTWARE PURCHASED BY INTEL

In conjunction with its recent endeavors to use software to give customers more processor performance, Intel has made plans to purchase high-performance software from the German company Pallas.

Scott MacLaughlin, an Intel spokesman, confirmed the news, and said the deal is expected to be finalized in September. He did not give any information concerning the financial terms of the deal.

Intel is interested in the various monitoring and performance improving cluster products offered by Pallas. In addition, Pallas helps companies to modify their software in order to run on clusters.

Also, Pallas is currently finishing a product hoped to make grid use easier. A grid is a supercomputer created by linking various organizations' computers and storage systems.

The Pallas group will become part of Intel's software and solutions group. Intel will acquire the 23-person group and its software, and no layoffs are expected.

Systems using Pallas' high-performance computing software include the top four systems in a list of the 500 fastest supercomputers, McLaughlin said. Customers include DaimlerChrysler, T-Mobile and IBM.

Intel sells basic software such as compilers that translate human-written software into instructions that Intel-based computers can understand.

But the chipmaker hasn't always had success with software efforts. Its Virtual Interface Architecture for running programs on a network of distributed computers, for example, wasn't widely adopted, said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff.

"It is certainly in Intel's interests to push clusters of smaller boxes because it tends to favor mostly Intel architecture-type boxes; they just don't really have the right touch points with end users to push software," Haff said. "IT managers go to their system vendors or third-party software companies for this sort of thing, not (to) Intel."

Intel's software group has been at work recently on a technology called the IA-32 Execution Layer, or IA-32EL, which Intel expects will make its new Itanium processors better able to run older software written for Pentium or Xeon processors.

McLaughlin declined to comment on how Intel would handle Pallas' future products, but he said the chipmaker wants to continue with Pallas' current products. "We intend to utilise all their technology, expertise and future high-performance computing software tools," he said.

Intel will not acquire the company's security and data management software groups. Pallas is a member of the ExperTeam group of information technology companies in Germany.