[yellowdog-announce] Terra Soft Launches 64-bit Y-HPC with SystemImager: Press Release 2004 11/09

[yellowdog-announce at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

WORLD'S MOST COMPLETE 64-BIT POWERPC HPC OS

Pittsburgh, PA -- 9 November 2004 -- Terra Soft Solutions(R), Inc., the 
leading developer of high performance, integrated PowerPC Linux solutions is 
proud to announce Y-HPC, the most complete 64-bit OS for PowerPC code 
development and High Performance cluster Computing, from the booth of Argonne 
National Lab, SC2004.

With the introduction of a 64-bit hybrid of Yellow Dog Linux at SC2003, then 
built from the 2.4 kernel, Terra Soft has moved aggressively into the high 
performance computing space with multiple advances over the course of the 
past year, including the addition of 64-bit memory addressing, transition to 
the 2.6.9 kernel, and compilation of key applications for large scale 
clustering.

Core to Y-HPC is a Yellow Dog Linux v4.0 foundation where the Y-HPC installer 
replaces key components with 64-bit enhancements, including gcc, glibc, and 
other libraries, and kernel.

Terra Soft recognizes the importance of providing a robust, scalable, proven 
node imaging technology. To this end, Terra Soft collaborated with Argonne 
National Lab's Brian Finley and conducted a PowerPC port of SystemImager(R). 
In addition to this port, Terra Soft created Y-Imager, a unique graphical 
interface which offers a means of clearly visualizing the construction and 
state of a virtually unlimited number of nodes.

Brian Elliott Finley, Sr. Systems Engineer for the Mathematics and Computer 
Science Division at Argonne National Lab, and creator of SystemImager offers, 
"Terra Soft approached us with interest in porting and maintaining 
SystemImager on the PowerPC architecture, and has achieved rapid success with 
a working port. Terra Soft's new 'Y-Imager' provides an elegant graphical 
means of rapidly imaging and maintaining Apple G5 and JS20 clusters. This is 
exciting, due to the rising popularity of the PowerPC architecture in 
scientific and HPC environments, and we appreciate the way Terra Soft is 
working with and contributing to the community."

Y-Imager is a light-weight, powerhouse application that offers graphical 
feedback during the entire process of building a cluster node, including the 
copy, rename, deletion, and selection of node images. Node status indicators 
include: sequential node number, logic board serial number, IP address, node 
family name, and date/time of node build.m,

"During the past year, we have built relationships with key industry 
associates: IBM, Platform, SBS, and CFS, Inc. to make certain that the Y-HPC 
product suite offers a complete clustering solution. To this end, our working 
closely with Argonne has provided a time-tested, stable foundation for rapid 
node imaging of large scale clusters. Our application of the GUI meets the 
needs of modern cluster managers, supplying a means of visualizing the 
otherwise complex set of variables associated with cluster construction," 
states Kai Staats, co-founder and CEO of Terra Soft Solutions.

Included with Y-HPC, which is expected to ship by the close of November, are 
the following 64-bit drivers and libraries:
  - InfiniBand driver from SBS Technologies.
  - Maui, Torque schedulers.
  - MVAPICH, MPI-CH, LAM-MPI.
  - lapack, linpack.
  - Goto's BLAS, NCBI-BLAST.
  - bproc
  - And more ...

For more infomation, visit:
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/y-hpc/

Kai Staats, Y-Imager author AJ Hawks, and lead YDL developer Owen Stampflee 
are on the SC2004 showfloor in the booth of host Argonne National Lab.


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 portables, desktop workstations, application and 
network servers, and HPC clusters. Terra Soft offers both 32-bit and 64-bit 
PowerPC Linux distributions.

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


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