[yellowdog-announce] Fixstars Releases Y-HPC v2.1 for PS3 Clusters - Press Release - August 12, 2009

Announce List for all Fixstars Solutions products (moderated) yellowdog-announce at lists.fixstars.com
Wed Aug 12 09:07:26 MDT 2009


Fixstars Releases YHPC v2.1 Featuring YDEL v6.1

LOVELAND, COLORADO, 12 August 2009 - Fixstars today announced the
availability of Y-HPC v2.1 for Sony PLAYSTATION(R)3, the world's only
commercial, cross-architecture cluster construction suite. This updated
version offers all the performance improvements found in Yellow Dog
Enterprise Linux v6.1.

Y-HPC provides the next generation of ps3vram for fast, temporary file
storage or swap using PS3 video RAM. This version of ps3vram is up to
50% faster than prior versions and automatically enabled as swap.

The faster ps3vram feature has enabled Dr. Gaurav Khanna, an assistant
professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, in his Black
Hole research using a cluster of PS3s.

"The built-in and configured ps3vram-swap patch has perhaps been the
most major benefit thus far," states Dr. Khanna. "It makes something
that was otherwise quite challenging doable in a reasonable amount of
time. And that is potentially going to be extremely useful to me and to
other PS3 cluster users."

      To read more about how Dr. Khanna is using YDEL in his PS3 cluster,
      visit: http://us.fixstars.com/showcase/cellebration/umass/

This latest version of Y-HPC offers the updated kernel v2.6.28, IBM Cell
SDK v3.1.0.1, improved ps3vram support, Libfreevec, as well as other
features found in YDEL v6.1 and YDL v6.2. Libfreevec is an LGPL library
with replacement routines for GLIBC, such as memcpy(), strlen(), etc.
These routines, which were rewritten and optimized to use the VMX
(called AltiVec on Apple G4/G5) unit found in the Cell CPUs, now offers
an average of 25% increase in application performance.

      Review benchmarks comparing YDEL to Fedora and RHEL:
      http://us.fixstars.com/products/ydel/benchmarks.shtml

"Y-HPC v2.1 with it's monumental improvements in compute performance
will allow existing and new PLAYSTATION(R)3 clusters to tackle problems
never before believed to be practical," states Owen Stampflee, Fixstars
Linux Product Manager, "The additional fast storage provided by ps3vram
enables larger problem sizes to be facilitated on the otherwise limited
Sony PS3."

The Fixstars' Y-HPC cluster construction suite is now bundled with YDEL
licenses--purchase YDEL and receive Y-HPC for the same number of nodes
at no additional charge. Existing PS3 clusters may be upgraded to Y-HPC
v2.1 for just $285 per node.

      YDEL plus Y-HPC is immediately available from Fixstars' on-line
      Store: http://us.fixstars.com/store/




About Fixstars
Fixstars, a pioneer in the Multi-core industry, is a leading provider
for services and solutions for such processors as the Cell Broadband
Engine and GPU. Since 2008 Fixstars, in conjunction with Broadcast
International, has been focused on optimization, product development,
and marketing for the innovative CodecSys software for Multi-Core
platforms. In addition, Fixstars offers complete Multi-core ecosystem
including turn-key products ideal for the Financial, Medical,
Manufacturing, and Digital Media markets. Founded in 2002, Fixstars is
headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with subsidiary Fixstars Solutions in San
Jose, CA and Loveland, CO.

For more information, visit http://us.fixstars.com


GigaAccel, Yellow Dog Linux, YDL, Y-HPC, and Y-Film are registered
trademarks of Fixstars Corporation. IBM, PXCAB, and POWER are trademarks
of IBM Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Linux is
a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Additional product and company
names mentioned may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their
respective holders.


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