COLSA TO BUILD APPLE XSERVE G5-BASED SUPERCOMPUTER.COLSA COLSA College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (University of New Hampshire) Corporation has purchased a 1566 dual processor 1U rack-mount 64-bit Xserve G5 servers from Apple to build a new supercomputer expected to be one of the fastest in the world. The supercomputer, named MACH 5, is a breakthrough in price performance for high-performance computing High-speed computing, which typically refers to supercomputers used in scientific research. . It is expected to deliver a peak performance capability of more than 25 TFlops/second at a cost of $5.8 million and will be used to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight Hypersonic flight Flight at speeds well above the local velocity of sound. By convention, hypersonic flight starts at about Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and extends upward in speed indefinitely. for the US Army. "We expect MACH 5 to rank as one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet," said Dr Anthony DiRienzo, executive vice president at COLSA Corporation. "According to the November 2003 Top 500 supercomputer list, it would rank second only to Japan's $350 million Earth Simulator computer at less than two percent of the cost. We evaluated PC-based proposals from other vendors but none came close to delivering either the price, performance or manageability of the Apple Xserve G5." "Apple is honored that COLSA chose the Xserve G5 to build their supercomputer cluster," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The ground breaking 64-bit performance and incredible I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output capabilities of the Xserve G5, combined with the reliability and scalability of our UNIX-based Mac OS X Server software deliver high-performance computing solutions perfect for anyone looking to cluster from two to thousands of nodes, at an unbeatable price." The Xserve G5 supercluster su·per·clus·ter n. A group of neighboring clusters of galaxies. supercluster A large group of neighboring clusters of galaxies, along with isolated galaxies scattered between them, the entire collection system is expected to be on-line and working for the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC AMRDEC Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (US Army Aviation and Missile Command) ) division of the US Army Research and Development Command by late Fall. This acquisition is the second phase of a multi-year COLSA program to create a center of excellence in Huntsville, AL for high-performance computing. Through the continued efforts of Senator Richard Shelby, (R.), AL, a long term supporter of bringing this advanced capability to Huntsville, the new system will benefit both the U.S. Army and NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. for the National Aerospace Initiative and their research and development objectives. Apple's dual-processor 64-bit Xserve G5 server delivers over 30 gigaflops (GIGA FLoating point OPerations per Second) One billion floating point operations per second. See FLOPS. (unit) gigaflops - (GFLOPS) One thousand million (10^9) floating point operations per second. of processing power per system, about 60 percent more than the PowerPC G4- based Xserve. With unparalleled performance and manageability in a 1U rack-mount enclosure and Mac OS X Server version 10.3 "Panther" software pre-installed, Xserve G5 is the perfect server for today's UNIX-based applications. About COLSA Corporation COLSA Corporation, headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, provides innovative technical products and services to a broad base of customers. COLSA excels in six essential areas of service: Information Systems, Commercial Services, Test and Evaluation, Systems Engineering, Advanced Technology, and Information Technology Professional Services (GSA (1) (Global mobile Suppliers Association, Sawbridgeworth, U.K., www.gsacom.com) A membership organization of suppliers of GSM products and services. Its goal is to promote GSM as the worldwide mobile communications standard. See GSM Association and GSM. Schedule). For more information, visit http://www.colsa.com or call 256/964-5399. |
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