Top500 debut heralds new relationship between NCSA, Microsoft

released 06.28.06

Contact
Trish Barker
NCSA Public Information Specialist
tlbarker@ncsa.uiuc.edu
217.265.8013

URBANA, IL — NCSA's recently installed Lincoln cluster debuted at #130 on the Top500 list today. Lincoln, a cluster of 450 Dell PowerEdge™ 1855 blade servers, is a dual boot system capable of running both Linux and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 -- the first NCSA system to employ the new Microsoft cluster software.

Lincoln also heralds Microsoft's entry into NCSA's Private Sector Program, the gateway between NCSA's research scientists and technologists and firms interested in work being done at NCSA. This relationship will allow NCSA to remain on top of developments Microsoft is making in high-performance computing. Collectively NCSA and Microsoft will address the interests of NCSA's other private sector partners, which include ACNielsen, Boeing Phantom Works, Caterpillar, Dell, Exxon Mobil, IBM, John Deere, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Motorola Labs.

"We understand that there are technical applications -- many of interest to our Private Sector Partners -- that run Windows. And we expect that the need for high-performance computing among these applications is going to be huge. It's an area that gets no respect, but it's an important area to explore. These sorts of explorations are a key strength and mandate of our Innovative Systems Laboratory," says Rob Pennington, NCSA's Chief Technology Officer and leader of the Innovative Systems Laboratory.

Microsoft has also designated NCSA as one the Microsoft Institutes for High-Performance Computing; these partnerships aim to help guide ongoing software research and product innovation at Microsoft to address the most challenging technical computing problems.

Lincoln follows in the path of two other Dell clusters that NCSA offers to the national research community -- Tungsten and T2. Tungsten, which is supported by the National Science Foundation and is allocated through NSF's peer reviewed process, is an extremely popular resource, attracting requests for allocations that far exceed the amount of time available on the system. T2 has been extensively used by the center's private sector partners since it was added to the machine room late in 2004.

Funding for Lincoln was provided by the University of Illinois. NCSA plans to upgrade Lincoln substantially in the coming months. For more information on Lincoln's use of Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, see: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/jun06/06-28isc.mspx.

NCSA™ (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a unique state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is one of the leading National Science Foundation-supported supercomputing centers. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners, and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.

 

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