Cluster Computing:

PATHSCALE INTROS WORLD'S LOWEST-LATENCY CLUSTER INTERCONNECT

PathScale, developer of innovative software and hardware solutions to accelerate the performance and efficiency of Linux clusters, announced the PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect, the industry's lowest latency Linux cluster interconnect delivering SMP-class performance for commodity-priced clustered computing. The PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect leverages three important industry standards, HyperTransport, InfiniBand, and the AMD64 architecture, to maximize performance and make low-latency interconnects more affordable to a broader range of high-performance computing users.

"In our research with end-users, users consistently state that Interconnect performance in terms of both latency and bandwidth is a major requirement for migrating larger and more complex applications to technical Linux clusters." stated Earl Joseph, research vice president of IDC. "PathScale's InfiniPath solution is positioned to address these requirements for commodity component based Linux clusters."

The introduction of InfiniPath is a disruptive development in high performance computing. Enterprises will no longer need million-dollar "big box" symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) computer systems. An InfiniPath-enabled Linux cluster will give enterprises greater performance at a substantially lower cost than SMP systems. Infinipath technology will accelerate the movement of Linux clusters into the enterprise for application servers, business intelligence, storage virtualization and more.

Unprecedented Linux Cluster Performance

The PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect dramatically increases cluster performance, scalability and throughput to empower users to leverage the flexibility and cost effectiveness of Linux clusters for both parallel applications and applications that previously had been run on large, expensive, proprietary SMPs.

Most large-scale SMP systems today offer memory latencies of approximately one microsecond. In order to effectively migrate applications from these systems to commodity clusters, an interconnect with similar latencies is required. PathScale delivers the only low-latency Linux cluster interconnect that can support these application requirements. With MPI latency of less than 1.5 microseconds and a bi-directional data rate of 1.8 gigabytes per second, PathScale's InfiniPath Interconnect offers the industry's lowest latency and highest bandwidth, delivering unmatched application scalability for Linux Clusters. These characteristics combine to improve cluster efficiency and allow demanding applications to effectively scale to many thousands of computing nodes. In addition, the performance of an InfiniPath-enabled cluster will continue to improve with the speed of the processor – the faster the processor, the lower the latency of the InfiniPath Adapter and the greater the efficiency of the cluster.

Greater efficiency also allows users to move complex computational jobs into larger cluster environments and obtain faster results. Examples of HPC applications that can benefit from increased cluster efficiency include computational fluid dynamics, reservoir simulation, weather forecasting, crash analysis, weapons simulation, and molecular modeling. Key enterprise applications such as business intelligence and financial modeling can also realize substantial benefits from PathScale InfiniPath.

Adherence to Industry Standards

PathScale is a strong advocate of the use of industry standards to drive commodity pricing for HPC technologies. Widely adopted standards used to connect cluster system components are used by the PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect. These include the InfiniBand switched fabric architecture, Linux, Message Passing Interface (MPI), HyperTransport and the HTX connector, and the AMD64 processor architecture.

PathScale InfiniPath connects AMD Opteron processor based clusters together via external InfiniBand 4X switches. InfiniPath has been tested with the leading InfiniBand switch suppliers - including Topspin, Voltaire, Mellanox and Infinicon. This ensures full interoperability and allows InfiniPath to be fully managed by the subnet management offerings of the leading InfiniBand switch vendors.

The PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect attaches directly into the HyperTransport port on the Opteron. It can be placed directly onto a processor motherboard or implemented as an adapter card that plugs into an industry- standard HyperTransport HTX slot. Compared to existing proprietary high-speed interconnects, the PathScale InfiniPath Interconnect offers significantly lower latency and higher bandwidth at lower, commodity-like prices.

Initial Partners Engaged

PathScale InfiniPath offers significant opportunities for resellers, integrators and OEMs as its enables them to further differentiate their product offerings. Many of the leading AMD system OEMs, including Linux Networx, Microway, Angstrom, Appro, GridCore, Dalco, Hard Data and TeamHPC have already signed on to resell PathScale InfiniPath to their customers who require ultra low-latency. As InfiniPath can be deployed either as an adapter card or on the motherboard, it offers our partners even greater flexibility and potential differentiation. PathScale has worked with AMD system OEMs over the last 6 months, bidding Pathscale InfiniPath in large-scale cluster proposals that are planned for deployment in 2005.

About PathScale

Based in Sunnyvale, California, PathScale develops innovative software and hardware technologies that substantially increase the performance and efficiency of Linux clusters, the next significant wave in high-end computing. Applications that benefit from PathScale's technologies include seismic processing, complex physical modeling, EDA simulation, molecular modeling, biosciences, econometric modeling, computational chemistry, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, weather modeling, resource optimization, decision support and data mining. PathScale's investors include Adams Street Partners, Charles River Ventures, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, CMEA Ventures, ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures and the Dow Employees Pension Plan. For more details, visit http://www.pathscale.com; send email to sales@pathscale.com or telephone 1-408-746-9100.