[yellowdog-announce] Terra Soft Completes TI04 Services for Lockheed Martin, U.S. Navy

[yellowdog-announce at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

TERRA SOFT COMPLETES TI04 SERVICES FOR LOCKHEED MARTIN , U.S. NAVY

Loveland, Colorado -- 2 December 2004 -- Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., leading 
developer of integrated PowerPC Linux solutions, has completed support for 
TI04, the most recent installation of the Lockheed Martin-integrated Acoustic 
Rapid Commercial Off-The-Shelf Installation (ARCI) program for the U.S. Navy. 
The ARCI program is a phased effort to provide the U.S. Navy submarine force 
with a sonar that is far more capable and flexible than earlier designs by 
using an open-system architecture design that exploits commercial processing 
improvements.

In 2003, Terra Soft was awarded a hardware and services contract for the TI02 
project. Terra Soft delivered 270 Apple G4 Xserves in modified 1U chassis and 
assisted Lockheed Martin with driver development, performance improvement, 
and an at-sea node recovery system.

With the G5-based TI04 systems, Terra Soft enabled 64-bit PowerPC Linux 
support for bootable Compact Flash, a solid-state storage medium; and 
developed a means by which compact flash cards may be rapidly reformatted and 
reinstalled via a modified version of Y-HPC's system imager.

Y-HPC is the base of the operating environment supplied by Lockheed Martin for 
the G5-based units, being used in the production system as well as 
ground-based simulation systems and trainers by ARCI team members Lockheed 
Martin, Progeny Systems Corp., SAIC, and the Applied Research Laboratories of 
the University of Texas at Austin.

"The performance enhancement obtained from the 64-bit computing environment 
was a significant factor in the decision to introduce Y-HPC into the ARCI 
process used for the premier submarine fleet in the world. Terra Soft's 
assistance with the bootable compact flash enabled us to implement a reduced 
moving parts system for greater mean time between failure," stated Greg 
Hickey, senior software engineer for Lockheed Martin.

Terra Soft's services included assisting with the migration from 32-bit to 
64-bit systems, enabling boot support for Compact Flash cards in order that 
the operating system may be held in a read-only "black box" environment, and 
again assisting with the design and implementation of a means by which the 
crews on board the submarines may install fresh or failed units.

Kai Staats, co-founder and CEO of Terra Soft states, "Lockheed Martin has for 
two years delivered a series of challenges to our staff, a welcomed series of 
projects that press the limit of our experience. While Y-HPC was officially 
launched at SC2004 the second week of November, its development was 
accelerated by our work with Lockheed Martin and its associates. Y-HPC is 
therefore brought to market with an existing, installed user base. As with 
Yellow Dog Linux, Y-HPC is now in use and trusted by Lockheed Martin and the 
U.S. Navy."

U.S. Navy submarines utilize on-board HPC clusters for the real-time acoustic 
processing. These systems are revised and upgraded on a rotational basis.

Lockheed Martin has chosen the Apple Xserves and Yellow Dog Linux based Y-HPC 
as a significant part of its ARCI effort. This combination provides a 
solution that offers higher density, less power consumption, and greater 
performance than non-PowerPC, commodity solutions of a similar cost.

Terra Soft has licensed more than 600 CPUs for use with Y-HPC.


About Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
Terra Soft is a leading Integrated Solutions Provider with proven expertise in 
the PowerPC architecture and Linux OS platform. As an Apple Authorized 
Proprietary Solutions Provider and IBM Business Partner, Terra Soft provides 
turnkey and build-to-order systems with 32-bit Yellow Dog Linux or 64-bit 
Y-HPC, the most advanced 64-bit operating system for PowerPC HPC clusters.

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


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Corporation. G5 is a registered trademark of Apple Computer. All other 
trademarks or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.