[yellowdog-announce] Terra Soft, Mercury Deliver Dual 970 HPC Node: Press Release 2005 09/01

[yellowdog-announce at lists.terrasoftsolutions.com]

TERRA SOFT, MERCURY DELIVERY DUAL 970 HPC NODE

Loveland, Colorado -- 1 September 2005 -- Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. 
(NASDAQ: MRCY) and Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. announced their alliance to 
deliver the Mercury XR9, an advanced dual-PowerPC 970FX-based HPC (high 
performance computing) cluster node in a 1U and 4U rackmount, extended ATX 
form-factor.

Terra Soft. the leading developer of integrated Power Architecture Linux 
solutions, and a Value Added Reseller for Mercury, announced an alliance to 
provide the XR9 with its 64-bit Linux OS 'Y-HPC' and cluster management suite 
Y-Imager, pre-installed and configured.

"As promised, we are moving rapidly to provide new solutions to the Power 
Architecture ecosystem with a dual-970 1U rackmount HPC cluster node," said 
Kai Staats, co-founder and CEO of Terra Soft Solutions, "But do not mistake 
the XR9 for a simple product alternative, as it offers an incredible 
board-level design that sets it apart from existing solutions."

Compared to existing 970-based 1U products, the XR9 offers greater flexibility 
with adherence to the industry standard extended ATX form-factor in both a 1U 
and 4U rackmount chassis, greater scalability with two independent PCI-X 
channels supporting three slots, and an on-board service processor reducing 
CPU load by performing board-level monitoring and control.

"The delivery of the XR9 demonstrates our commitment to the Power Architecture 
and a paradigm shift in how a customer is supported in the Power HPC market 
place," Staats continued, "With a combined thirty-one years experience, Terra 
Soft and Mercury understand the customer's need for a product roadmap that 
extends beyond a few months, an OEM-level embrace of open-source, and a 
support team that includes the same engineers who designed the motherboard 
and built the operating system."

"Collaboration between members of the Power Architecture community like 
Mercury and Terra Soft continues to deliver new and innovative solutions to 
the marketplace," said Nigel Beck, vice president of Technology Marketing, 
IBM. "This offering is another example of the benefits of open technology and 
the flexible business model provided by the Power Architecture." The XR9 
offers the following:

 - Extended ATX mainboard.
 - Dual IBM PowerPC 970FX CPUs up to 2.4 GHz.
 - IBM CPC925 North bridge with 16-bit 400MHz HyperTransport cave:
        Peer-to-Peer access via reflected forward looping.
        16-bit bus between Northbridge and first Tunnel/PCI-X bridge.
        8-bit buses between the Tunnel/PCI-X bridge and South bridge. 

 - Extensive I/O offerings:
        Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports.
        Single 10/100 Ethernet port off South bridge.
        4 SATA channels.
        ATA133 IDE interface (Master + Slave).
        4 USB 1.1 ports.
        Dual RS-232 port.

        2 independent PCI-X buses offering 3 PCI-X slots.

            * Optional Infiniband PCI-X HCA supporting dual 4X ports.
            * Optional Serial FPDP PCI-X HCA supporting dual 2.5 gbaud ports. 

 - PowerPC 405EP Service and Control Processor:
        I2C interface.
        10/100 Ethernet port direct to Service Processor.
        RS-232 Serial port.
        System Management Bus Control.
        32K NVRAM with Real Time Clock. 

 - On-board flash ROM capable of holding LinuxBIOS for rapid, local boot 
without network nor a local drive. This increases the Mean Time Between 
Failure with a reduced number of moving parts and lower network overhead. 

Mercury, a top-tier provider of high density, embedded, and realtime 
processing systems and optimized tools and libraries since the early '80s, is 
moving to provide a greater diversity of Power Architecture products, adding 
its engineering and system design expertise to the commodity market.

"Mercury is embracing the use of systems built from high-performance 
server-class components in places where only higher-density form factors 
could once perform," said Mark Skalabrin, vice president and general manager, 
Advanced Solutions business, Mercury Computer Systems. "Working with Terra 
Soft will ensure that the XR9 is well supported with an industry-standard 
Linux operating system and cluster management suite. Terra Soft's 
understanding of the DOE and DOD labs is helping us shape the future of the 
XR product line."

Each XR9 ships from Terra Soft with Y-HPC pre-installed, configured as a head 
node, compute node, or storage node. Y-Imager provides a means of rapid-fire 
node image creation, modification, archiving, and delivery.

Y-HPC's full suite of open-source offerings, when coupled with IBM's XLC++ and 
XLF compilers and Mercury's middleware and optimized libraries, offers a 
powerful foundation for seamless code migration from 64-bit Linux desktop to 
64-bit Linux cluster. Y-HPC on the XR9 offers a robust means of satisfying 
growing HPC needs sensitive to price/performance and industry-standard, 
commodity-based solutions.

Staats concludes, "This is an exciting time for us. The reallocation of 
resources away from reverse engineering to proactive, creative processes will 
result in a profound change for our company, subsequent product offerings, 
and our future."

The XR9 is immediately available from Terra Soft's on-line Store


About Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
Terra Soft is a leading Integrated Solutions Provider with proven expertise in 
the Power architecture and Linux OS platform. As a Mercury, Apple, and Genesi 
VAR, and IBM Business Partner, Terra Soft provides turnkey and build-to-order 
portables, desktop workstations, HA servers, and HPC clusters. Terra Soft's 
Y-HPC 64-bit OS and cluster construction suite is widely accepted as a 
preferred platform for Xserve clusters.

For more information, visit www.terrasoftsolutions.com


About Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY) is the leading provider of 
high-performance embedded, real time digital signal and image processing 
computer systems. Mercury's products play a critical role in a wide range of 
applications, transforming sensor data to information for analysis and 
interpretation. In military reconnaissance and surveillance platforms the 
Company's systems process real time radar, sonar, and signals intelligence 
data. Mercury's systems are also used in state-of-the-art medical diagnostic 
imaging devices including MRI, PET, and digital X-ray, and in semiconductor 
imaging applications including photomask generation and wafer inspection. 
Mercury provides advanced 3D image processing and visualization software and 
optimized systems to diverse end markets including life sciences, 
geosciences, and simulation.

For more information, visit www.mc.com


'IBM' and 'Power' are registered trademarks of International Business Machines 
Corporation. XR9 is a registered trademark of Mercury. All other trademarks 
or registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.