November 14, 2006

http://www.appro.com/press/view.asp?Num=93

Appro’s Servers and Cluster Solutions based on Intel Xeon Processors boost Performance and Power Efficiency at Low Latency and High Memory Loadings

Milpitas, CA, November 14, 2006 – Appro(http://www.appro.com), a leading provider of high-performance enterprise computing systems announces support for Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor 3000 and 5100 series and the new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series. Appro showcases Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor cluster technologies demonstrations at the SC06 show in Tampa, FL, November 13- 16, booth 1634.

Appro servers based on the new Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series (formerly codenamed 'Clovertown') provide outstanding performance and reliability for a broad range of enterprise and technical computing applications. These servers also bring new advancements in memory, power, I/O, and security, optimizing the platform for the demands of multi-core processing. They provide up to three times the memory bandwidth and four times the capacity with new fully buffered DIMM memory, boosting system responsiveness for data-intensive applications.

Appro will feature two 1U Appro Dual Socket HyperServer cluster nodes based on the Intel Xeon processor 5300 series for a total of 16 cores. These nodes are connected with two 10 Gbps dual-port Mellanox PCIe InfiniBand Adapters running Platform Computing Open Cluster Stack. This cluster demo provides easy, fast and effective workload management offering MPI Optimization Strategies for Quad Core Intel Xeon processors. A complete white paper based on this demo along with Quad-Core Benchmark results will be distributed at the SuperComputing show.

Appro HyperBlade servers also support the Intel Xeon processor 3000 series. These servers, targeted for HPC environments, offer two boards per chassis nearly cutting the chassis and rack infrastructure cost in half. This cost-effective blade server delivers essential server-class features to reduce size, cost, power consumption and complexity. In addition it offers a small form factor board for high performance and high density computing applications enabling greater system-level innovation. The two socket HyperBlade server solution feature one PCI-e x8 slot enabling added I/O such as GbE, Infiniband, SAS RAID cards with 4 DIMM slots (maximum 8GB) of DDR2 533/667 memory. It delivers maximum flexibility, high-performance and value.

“Companies such as Appro are developing advanced products based on quad-core Intel Xeon processors that have the potential to change the shape of enterprise and technical computing datacenters,” said Jim Pappas, director of initiative marketing for Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. “New platforms based on the Intel Xeon processor 5300 series offer the industry’s first quad-core processors for standard high volume servers providing breakthrough performance and capabilities per watt for the ultimate in powerful, dense and energy efficient servers for datacenters and high performance computing environments.”

“Mellanox’s 10 and 20Gb/s InfiniBand adapters complement Appro’s introduction of multi-socket, Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor server solutions by providing the necessary I/O cluster bandwidth to efficiently utilize the available compute power of each node,” said Thad Omura, Vice President of Product Marketing for Mellanox Technologies.”

“By offering reliable, faster, energy-efficient processing capabilities with increased system performance packaged with outstanding cluster solution integration, customers can build a consolidated and simplified infrastructure that is easy to scale and an ideal solution for High Performance and Enterprise datacenter consolidation,” said John Lee, Director of Customer and Engineering Services.

About Appro
Appro’s headquarters is in Milpitas, CA with an R&D and manufacturing center in Asia and a sales and service office in Houston, Texas. APPRO accelerates technical, IT and business results through its innovative product architecture, industry leading engineering, people, and experience. APPRO enables a variety of network computing applications by developing powerful, scalable, and reliable clusters, servers, storage subsystems and high-end workstations for the high-performance computing (HPC), Internet computing and cluster market. To learn more go to http://www.appro.com/.

Appro is an Intel® Channel Partner Member and an Intel® Premier Provider Backed by one of the biggest names in technology, Intel® Channel Partner Members deliver custom IT solutions for a variety of consumer and business markets. Appro uses industry-leading Intel platform products coupled with a high level of innovation to create IT solutions specific to customers' needs. To maximize technology investment, Appro has access to training on the latest Intel products and solutions that are compatible with existing hardware and software solutions.