SGI Introduces the SGI BioCluster Life Sciences Workflow Solution

With clusters the fastest growing segment of the computer
market in biosciences according to the IDC industry analyst report ”
HPC
Market and Research Overview: 2006 and Beyond”, SGI introduces the SGI
BioCluster, a powerful and accelerated workflow solution for pharmaceutical,
life sciences and higher education researchers. The SGI BioCluster is an SGI
Altix XE cluster system with PBS Pro cluster management tools and the eXludus
Grid Optimizer, a new multi-core capacity management technology that
substantially boosts throughput in clusters and grids running workloads with
tens, hundreds or thousands of concurrent users through its unique real-time
job schedule optimization technology.

Two life sciences software applications have been benchmarked by eXludus on
the SGI BioCluster thus far, using a 64-processor configuration. There was a 70
percent performance acceleration of HMMER and 90 percent acceleration on
BLASTn, compared to a SGI Altix XE cluster using PBS Pro only.

“The high performance gains we achieved on in-house benchmarks are a
result of the combination of our new Grid Optimizer, which is designed to
increase the throughput efficiency of multi-core processors and prevent them
from interfering with one another and the scalable architecture of the SGI
Altix XE,” said Benoit Marchand, founder and
CEO of
eXludus. “As we developed this technology we found that not only does
performance increase, but performances of certain classes of applications
accelerate tremendously, specifically bioinformatics, proteomics, animation and

PDA chip design. In a nutshell, Grid Optimizer accelerates
performance in many classes of applications and ensures the machines are used
to their fullest capacity.”

As benchmarking continues, it is expected that as other life sciences
applications are tested similar speed-ups will be achieved, greatly differentiating
the SGI BioCluster from other clusters in productivity benefits and
price-performance.

“The SGI BioCluster is an ideal solution for pharmaceutical, biotech
and university researchers seeking a turn-key workflow solution that will
accelerate their genomics and proteomics work and easily integrate into their
existing infrastructure,” said Deepak Thakkar, Ph.D., BioSciences Segment
Manager, SGI. “Clusters are the compute platform of choice of almost 40
percent of the total biosciences market and with the powerful BioCluster
solution SGI will be delivering a system that will enable faster time to
insight and discovery.”

The SGI BioCluster is available immediately through SGI and SGI value-added
reseller channel. The system can be purchased with a 1, 2, or 3-year license,
or as a 90-day trial version. The SGI BioCluster with the 64 Intel Xeon
processors is the recommended configuration for high performance results. The
system can also be configured with 16 or 32 processors. SGI customers who currently
own an SGI Altix XE cluster system can purchase the eXludus Grid Optimizer with
the same 1, 2, or 3 year license, or 90-day trial as well.

Password must contain the following:

A lowercase letter

A capital (uppercase) letter

A number

Minimum 8 characters

;
SVGLogoHR_NOTAG-200

The Latest in Sports Video Production & Technology
in Your Inbox for FREE

Daily Email Newsletters Monday - Friday