[yellowdog-announce] Terra Soft Installs BioPhysics Cluster at U of Colorado: Press Release 19 Nov 2002

[TSS Media Relations]

TERRA SOFT INSTALLS BIOPHYSICS CLUSTER AT U OF COLORADO

Boulder, Colorado -- 19 November 2002 -- Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.,=20
the leading developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions, is proud=20
to announce the installation of a 30-node Xserve cluster running=20
Yellow Dog Linux and Black Lab at the University of Colorado.

The cluster, underwritten by a grant from the National Science=20
Foundation, is housed in the Department of Biology, and will assist=20
researchers who are interested in understanding the biophysics of=20
computation in neural dendrites.

Professor Jeffrey Fox, Department of Mathematics, has developed code=20
for the cluster which enables new and more detailed models of neuron=20
functions at the molecular dynamics level. "From my point of view,=20
there is going to be explosive growth in demand for HPC in the=20
biological sciences. The very nature of the people using this=20
technology requires as little assembly of the hardware and software=20
as possible, otherwise small labs will not be able to afford the time=20
and expense of using cluster computing. While cluster computing is not=20
a yet turn key affair ... the closer it gets to workstation=20
status the more it will be incorporated into small labs," states=20
Professor Fox.

As an Apple Authorized OEM VAR, Terra Soft is uniquely positioned to=20
provide single source HPC solutions to this growing market. Terra=20
Soft's Black Lab cluster build-management suite offers single-click=20
installation, simple configuration, automated updates through=20
apt-get, and control from either an X windows graphical user=20
interface or command line.

Fox continues, "None of the people working on the project are experts=20
in parallel computation, computer science, or applied mathematics.=20
Our focus is on the biology and biophysics, so we went with Yellow=20
Dog/Blacklab [in order to] minimize the amount of time and effort=20
needed to set up a cluster for scientific computing."

The Apple Xserve offers a price/performance competitive solution,=20
flexible as a headless HPC node with as many as four or no local=20
drives at all. Black Lab eliminates the need for keyboard and monitor=20
switches, provides automated server to node process migration, and is=20
immediately scalable to several hundred nodes. Yellow Dog Linux=20
provides a professional open-source distribution substantiated by a=20
large, growing userbase dedicated to PowerPC.

Fox concludes, "We were very aggressive in our plans for the model in=20
terms of computation, yet we had a very modest budget for hardware.=20
The G4 was chosen [for its] price/performance ratio. The Xserve with=20
gigabit ethernet is ideal for the current message passing=20
requirements."

Two months prior, Terra Soft assisted Fox with code development by=20
assembling a 4-node Black Lab-YDL cluster using existing University=20
Apple PowerMac G4s.


About Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
Terra Soft is a leading developer of integrated solutions for PowerPC.=20
Yellow Dog Linux, the flagship product, has boosted viability of=20
Linux on PowerPC microprocessors with support for Apple Xserve, the=20
briQ, and other PowerPC-based desktop, embedded, and HPC computers.=20
Black Lab is an HPC cluster node build and management suite.

For more information, visit http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/