Cluster Computing:

SCALABLE 'ROCKS CLUSTER TOOLKIT' CERTIFIED FOR SUN SERVERS

Sun Microsystems Inc and Singapore-based Scalable Systems Pte. Ltd, a high performance computing (HPC) company, announced the availability of the Scalable Rocks Cluster Toolkit certified for the Sun Fire V20z and V40z servers with AMD Opteron processors. The toolkit is an easy-to-use cluster configuration and management package to help customers bring their own clusters online quickly.

The product is based on NPACI Rocks software, developed by the Grid and Cluster Computing Group at San Diego Supercomputer Center and its collaborators. NPACI Rocks received numerous reader's choice and editor's choice awards from HPCwire at Supercomputing 2004, taking place this week including: most important software innovation and most important software.

"Scalable Rocks enables system integrators, cluster administrators and end- users to achieve maximum productivity and throughput performance in the shortest amount of time. With the core Rocks technology enhanced with our web- based cluster management console and integrated with Sun N1 Grid Engine -- you get a working cluster -- first time, every time," said Mr. Laurence Liew, chief technology officer for Scalable Systems, Ltd. "Working with Sun and their partners, we hope to pass on implementation cost savings reducing deployment time for customers from 10 days to 2 days."

Scalable Rocks includes a web-enabled cluster management console to manage a Rocks cluster. The Scalable Rocks Cluster Toolkit -- which includes the Rocks Console (RxC) built on the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is also integrated with Sun N1 Grid Engine.

"We are delighted that Scalable Rocks is now certified for Sun platforms based on the AMD Opteron processor," said Dr. Philip Papadopoulos, program director of Grid and Cluster Computing at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). "Scalable Systems Singapore is one of the core-developers and long-time contributors to the NPACI Rocks project and I am confident that this will give Sun and its partners access to one of the largest and most experienced Rocks developers and engineers outside of SDSC."

"Scalable Rocks with Sun N1 Grid Engine integration will mean a compact, proven, easy to deploy and easy to use cluster system," said Lionel Lim, vice president and managing director of the Asia South division of Sun Microsystems.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com/.