H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** April 12, 1996: Vol. 5, No. 15 Circulation: 17,877 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 206 Pages of Text ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Article Retrieval instructions at end of this file more@hpcwire.tgc.com For subscription information, email sub@hpcwire.tgc.com For a free 4-week trial subscription, e-mail trial@hpcwire.tgc.com -------------------- * -------------------- 7142) CALL FOR PARTICIPATION SUPERCOMPUTING '96 November 17-22 Pittsburgh, PA The ninth in a series, this conference is regarded as the premier conference on high performance computing and communication technologies. Retrieve this item for information and details on submission guidelines. ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | 8472 ) FEATURES: DENNIS DUKE NAMED SDSC DIRECTOR | | 8474 ) SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS: DIGITAL LIBRARY INITIATIVE PROGRESSES | | 8476 ) COMMERCIAL NEWS: SCALABILITY KEY TO BARCLAYS TRANSACTION PROCESSING| | 8479 ) NEWS BRIEFS: SYMBOLIC PARALLEL PROGRAMMING METHOD DEVELOPED | |____________________________________________________________________________| FEATURES ===================================================================== 8471 ) IBM'S REDESIGN DOUBLES SP SWITCH PERFORMANCE......................5.37K Reported by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large IBM has cleaned up the implementation of the switch at the heart of its SP distributed-memory systems and put most of the traffic on CMOS chips. The result: doubled switch performance and higher reliability at the same price. 8472 ) DENNIS W. DUKE NAMED DIRECTOR OF SAN DIEGO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER...3.32K by Alan Beck, managing editor Dennis Duke, director of the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI) at Florida State University Dennis Duke has been hired to take over the top job at San Diego Supercomputer Center. 8473 ) REVIEW: CLUSTERS AND SMP BATTLE FOR HPC'S LOW END.................10.6K Book Review by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large A new book by Gregory F. Pfister of IBM portrays clusters in the context of a war with SMP. His discussion is informative, stimulating, and contentious. It leaves important gaps and was written too early to include major recent issues. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 8474 ) DIGITAL LIBRARY INITIATIVE TACKLES GRAND CHALLENGE OF INFO SCIENCE.5.12K by Alan Beck, managing editor Using a week of dedicated computer time on NCSA's 64-node HP Convex Exemplar, researchers on the NSF/DARPA/NASA-funded Digital Library Initiative project were able to generate concept spaces for 10,000,000 journal abstracts across 1,000 subject areas. 8475 ) SPECTRUM WILL DESIGN DSP BOARD FOR SIEMENS MEDICAL SYSTEMS........1.58K The high-performance, multiprocessing DSP boards with specialized software are expected to be optimized for diagnostic imaging modalities including nuclear medicine, ultrasound, mammography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and Computed Tomography (CT). COMMERCIAL NEWS 8476 ) SCALABILITY HELPS BARCLAYS BANK MEET INCREASED E-PAYMENT DEMAND...2.25K In a 10-year strategic partnership, ACI and Barclays have deployed a solution consisting of BASE24 software running on a 4-processor Tandem Himalaya K10000 and a 12-processor Tandem Cyclone/R system. Planning paid off recently when Barclays Merchant services was able to manage 101 transactions per second (tps) and sustained throughput of 96 tps averaged over an hour. 8477 ) IDAHO POWER REPLACES LEGACY SYSTEM WITH ENTERPRISE-WIDE SOLUTION..2.12K Idaho Power is among the group of IBM/MVS customers which will implement its new enterprise solution on ES9000 server architecture using DB2 as the relational database management system. Indus Group is supplying the workflow software. 8478 ) SEQUENT AND ORACLE JOIN TO OFFER SCALABILITY FOR DECISION SUPPORT.4.77K A 10-year working relationship between Sequent and Oracle has resulted in a new scalable data interconnect for enterprise-class, terabyte-size systems. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ 8474 ) "It's a good example of what HPC technology is good for. It lets you simulate functionality on the high-end which will be available for the masses when, in 10 years, the typical PC runs at the same speed as the Convex Exemplar." -- Bruce Schatz, Research Scientist on the Illinois DLI project ___________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT______________________________ | | | 7139 ) National Supercomputing Center at Berkeley offers exciting | | employment opportunities | | 7122 ) AS HPC UNDERGOES A METAMORPHOSIS, WHAT DO USERS WANT FROM HPC | | PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? A special report compiled 1st qtr 1996. | | 7137 ) HPCN Europe`96, Brussels, April 15 - 19: Retrieve For Full Details.| | 7138 ) SONY's 19MM Storage Interface Options Offer Expanded Applications | | 7140 ) HPCN Tutorials and Workshops Listings Announced | | 7143 ) How You Can Control Your Company's Announcements in HPCwire | | and Reach Over 34,000 HPC Professionals Weekly! | |___________________________________________________________________________| NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== 8479 ) Symbolic Parallel Programming Method Developed for Intel MMX....2.64K 8480 ) Final Proration Factor Announced in SGI Tender for Cray.........1.29K 8481 ) Entel Chile Builds South America's First Commercial ATM Network.2.20K 8482 ) Cornell Theory Center Releases Hypermedia Science Book..........3.25K 8483 ) Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology Orders Cray J932........2.53K 8484 ) Pentium Expected to Comprise 91 Percent of Intel's 96 Shipments.1.06K 8485 ) Leeson Electric Selects Oracle to Provide Information Solution..1.78K 8486 ) Moving Worlds Chosen as Official VRML 2.0 Standard..............1.85K 8487 ) Intergraph TD-400 Posts SYSmark/NT Benchmark Results............2.11K 8488 ) Data Translation Files Suit Against Avid Technology.............1.76K SHORT TAKES 8489 ) Product Watch: NEC Releases SX-4B Server. VisFly Ported to HP...21.5K 8490 ) Financial Update: DEC Shifts Business Units. Intel Earnings Up..8.56K 8491 ) Corporate Liaisons: HP and Spectrum to Develop DSP Products.....9.62K 8492 ) People & Promotions: New CEOs Appointed at Avid and MTI.........5.17K JOB BANK ====================================================================== 667 ) Employment Opportunities.........................................2.55K From: Penn State, IBM Watson Research Lab, MIT, IBM Corporation, Concurrent Technology Corporation, University of Illinois 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations..................................1.22K CONFERENCES ================================================================== 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated April 11)...............8.02K HPCwire INFORMATION ========================================================== 670 ) Masthead.........................................................2.17K 601 ) Subscriptions & Removals.........................................2.61K 602 ) Submitting Letters & Articles....................................1.58K 950 ) Index of Back Issues.............................................10.5K Comments regarding editorial content may be sent to: editor@hpcwire.tgc.com ______________________H P C w i r e S P O N S O R S_______________________ | Full background information on all Sponsoring Companies | | | | 936) Sony 905)*Maximum Strategy 937) Digital Equipment | | 934)*HP/Convex Tech. Center930) HNSX Supercomputers 932) *Portland Group | | 921) Cray Research Inc. 902) IBM Corp. 915) *Genias Software | | 909) Fujitsu 904) Intel Corp. 935) Silicon Graphics | | | |__________________*Updated information within last 30 days__________________| *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** 8449 ) NOVEL ARCHITECTURAL PARADIGM IS READY FOR TESTING.................5.73K 8456 ) SGI APPOINTS NEW CRAY BOARD MEMBERS. CEO PHILLIP SAMPER RESIGNS...4.53K 8450 ) HITS & HISSES: JAPANESE VENDORS' SHARE OF HI-END HPC MARKET.......4.18K 7139 ) NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER AT BERKELEY OFFERS EXCITING EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~