November 14, 2006
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1096337.html
The success of Linux clusters and the advent of
the open source cluster has caused a proliferation of choice for users.
However, the lack of a consistent application experience is one of the
remaining barriers to widespread cluster adoption in many industries.
The Open Cluster Stack (OCS) reference architecture enables simpler
development for software developers and allows vendors to offer the
flexibility of Linux and open source with the support framework users
want. Customers will now have the ability to use a variety of third
party applications and the cluster configuration they want with
Platform Open Cluster Stack.
"As the program expands, a variety of software and hardware vendors
will be included, allowing users to select from an ever-growing list of
OCS-compatible offerings," said Chris Purpura, vice president of
strategic alliances and new ventures, Platform. "Cluster vendors
themselves will benefit, as they will have a consistent platform upon
which to build stable APIs and an increased ability to differentiate
themselves in a meaningful and profitable way."
"Dell has taken a leadership position to help simplify the deployment
of high-performance compute clusters for customers," said Judy Chavis,
director of business development and global alliances, Dell. "By
bundling this reference architecture and Platform OCS as a part of our
HPCC program, we will empower our customers to deploy more software
applications while maintaining the same high level of service and
support they have come to expect from Dell."
"The Intel MPI Library runtime is a core component of OCS," said Bill
Magro, director of cluster software and technologies, Intel. "As part
of OCS, this allows ISV applications to support a broad range of
networking interconnects without the burden of multiple application
binaries to manage and test. This is an important first step toward
consistency of experience, which will remove a key adoption barrier and
make the benefits of Intel Architecture cluster computing more
accessible to every organization."
"The reference architecture simply makes sense as differentiation now
lies with the whole product solution and is centered around support and
services and not engineered performance," said Gary Tyreman, vice
president, Platform. "Without a standard, replicable software stack
development for Linux-based HPC clusters can be extremely difficult. By
offering a single reference to a product perfectly tailored for its
audience, we have made clusters significantly easier to use and enabled
a new class of users to acquire and adopt the technology for a growing
set of problems."
Platform Open Cluster Stack is a modular and hybrid stack that
integrates open source and commercial software into a single cluster
operating environment. Platform OCS is a pre-integrated,
vendor-certified software stack designed to assure the consistent
delivery of scale-out application clusters.
