Blackstone Announces New Suite of High Throughput Computing Services.

Business/Technology Editors

WORCESTER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 19, 2001

Pioneer in high-throughput distributed computing broadens services for

accelerating and optimizing Life Science research infrastructures

In response to explosive demand from biotech and pharmaceutical companies requiring powerful computing environments, Blackstone Technology Group, a pioneer in high-throughput distributed computing, today announced the availability of a new family of High-Throughput Computing (HTC) Services. Blackstone's HTC Services are geared toward designing and optimizing computing environments based on customer's scientific applications, processes, and computing goals.

To process the immense volumes of data in genomics and proteomics-based research and drug discovery, life sciences companies require expertise to effectively manage complex research processes, applications and powerful infrastructures. Blackstone's HTC Services address the mission-critical computing needs of biotech and pharma companies by identifying core requirements and providing the necessary consulting, software applications and project management expertise for meeting a company's business and scientific objectives. Blackstone's consultants help companies that require a powerful and scalable approach to building, managing and supporting the three key areas of high-throughput computing environments: scientific applications, systems and data management, and hardware infrastructure.

"Life sciences companies realize that the key to discovery is to give scientists the computing speed and power they need to maximize their efficiency and accelerate research and development," said Brian Ritchie, president and chief executive officer of Blackstone. "Taking an integrated approach to managing research goals, data, applications and hardware is fundamental to eliminating bottlenecks and obstacles to discovery and time-to-market. Blackstone's HTC Services provide companies with the necessary technology and expertise to rapidly analyze computational requirements and deploy the resources necessary to support the customer's business and scientific objectives."

Blackstone has built its leadership in bioinformatics and high-throughput consulting services through its work with clients such as Biogen, Pfizer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca. The HTC Services are the result of years of in-depth experience in bioinformatics in distributed computing environments, where Blackstone has identified and solved frequently-occurring problems and bottlenecks for biotech and drug discovery clients.

Blackstone's HTC Services offer a spectrum ranging from audit services to the design, building and management of computing resources. They include:

-- High-Throughput Computing Audit - A cohesive, strategic assessment of a company's existing or planned infrastructure, based on business and scientific goals.

-- Science and Application Service - A service that enables high-throughput scientific pipeline processing by alleviating inefficiencies and bottlenecks that occur while processing scientific data.

-- Administrative Automation - A service that increases the automation of a company's computing while reducing its management costs, by recommending various software components that centralize and automate the key administrative tasks within a customer's compute environment.

-- System/Hardware Evaluation - An extensive evaluation of a company's system and hardware infrastructure, including recommendations for improvements and technology additions, in order to meet analysis and processing requirements.

-- Distributed Resource Management (DRM) Service - Design and implementation of a DRM system to optimize and improve the performance of all functional areas of a compute infrastructure.

-- Implementation Service - A tailored implementation service including configuration, integration and optimization, and project management, to deploy Blackstone-recommended solutions.

Blackstone also offers training and support elements with its High-Throughput Computing Services. Blackstone also complements the HTC Services with the following products:

-- SmartWatch - browser-based usage tracking and capacity planning software for distributed computing environments.

-- SmartBlast - accurately and efficiently distributes execution of BLAST research program for use over a cluster of computers.

-- SmartCache - based on SmartBlast, a data-management tool that uses a peer-to-peer technology to intelligently replicate, distribute and update data on local compute nodes.

About Blackstone

Blackstone provides software and services that create high-throughput computing environments. Blackstone helps customers speed time-to-market by designing and optimizing infrastructures for high user productivity, low administrative burden, and low ownership cost. Blackstone services and software solutions provide scalable, high-throughput compute power for the leaders in life sciences, electronic design automation, and other compute- and data-intensive markets. Further information on Blackstone is available at 508.793.2162, [e-mail], and http://www.computefarm.com.