Phoenix Technologies launches ServerBIOS 3.5 grid edition and announces collaboration with AMD.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq:PTEC), for more than two decades the company behind the software standard at the core of more than a billion PC systems and connected digital devices, has collaborated with AMD (NYSE:AMD) for the Phoenix ServerBIOS 3.5 Grid Edition, a solution for designing and building 32/64-bit brick, blade and grid-compatible servers.

ServerBIOS 3.5 Grid Edition, an extension of the Phoenix ServerBIOS family, is a solution that allows companies to custom design a rock-solid server platform that's compatible with the grid computing model. It supports key attributes and requirements for autonomic grid computing, including self-management, self-healing, disaster recovery, security, and scalability, and it features the UltraFast memory testing algorithm so servers that require up to 36 minutes to test 6 GB of memory now can do it in about 60 seconds. It supports the upcoming 32- and 64-bit AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors so systems will be able to increase memory and run larger enterprise applications. It also supports IPMI and ASF for enhanced system management.

Optional integration and customizable services from Phoenix include:

--large-scale CPU farms support (up to 255 processors)

--clustering OS validations for Linux or Globus Toolkits

--server-to-server authentications and credential management

--dynamic provisioning and image cloning

"In the new reality of networks, everything is a server," said Timothy D. Eades, Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Product Development for Phoenix. "Phoenix ServerBIOS 3.5 Grid Edition delivers a low-cost solution for the advanced utility computing model. Phoenix is in every thread of the networking fabric, making it possible for us to be at the foundation of every grid computing platform in the world."

Grid computing is a collection of distributed computing resources available over a local or wide area network. They appear to an application or end user as one large virtual computing system. The approach spans not only locations but also organizations, machine architectures, and software boundaries to provide unlimited power, collaboration, and information access to everyone connected to the grid. The purpose is to create virtual dynamic organizations through secure, coordinated resource sharing among individuals, institutions, and resources. Markets include providers of building blocks, software stacks, and infrastructure.

"AMD has been working with Phoenix to provide grid-computing customers 64-bit technology for enhanced features that complement AMD's upcoming processors," said Ed Gasiorowski, AMD's Director of Developer Relations, Computation Products Group. "Our shared customers will be able to experience increased performance, stability and flexibility using the upcoming AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 processors and Phoenix ServerBIOS 3.5 Grid Edition."

Industry experts have identified several key vertical markets for grid computing, including academia and related research, government labs, health research institutes, and commercial enterprises such as auto makers, insurance companies, entertainment and news media, scientific companies, and others. Grid computing can be used for server consolidation, testing and development environments, production computing, business continuity at the server or storage level, utility computing, and Web hosting.

Founded in 1979, Phoenix Technologies (Nasdaq:PTEC) is a developer of device-enabling and management software products for PCs and other connected digital devices. Phoenix FirstWare family of "instant on" software activates, secures, connects, and recovers digital devices and is designed into many millions of industry standard desktop, notebook, server, and information appliance systems sold annually. This enables Phoenix customers--specifiers, developers, and manufacturers of user-driven microprocessor systems--to reduce costs and provide significant value-added features to their customers. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Phoenix Technologies has offices worldwide.