H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** May 24, 1996: Vol. 5, No. 22 Circulation: 17,877 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 210 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 -------------------- * -------------------- 7151 ) E-SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES SUPPLIERS FOR 15 TERAFLOP HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING SYSTEM. Will be world's largest mission-critical supercomputing application. ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | 8632 ) FEATURES: INDUSTRY REACTION TO SUN'S FUTURE BUY OF CRAY SPARC BIZ | | 8634 ) SCIENCE & ENGINEERING: NCAR PURSUES THREE WEATHER RESEARCH ANGLES | | 8640 ) COMMERCIAL NEWS: HP PULLS PLUG ON MAINFRAME | | 8643 ) NEWS BRIEFS: COMPANY BRINGS PARALLEL PROCESSING TO NET | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================= HPCwire Special Report =========================== | | | NCAR BID AWARDED TO NEC | | The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) which manages | | the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) announced that it | | has chosen a NEC supercomputer for use at NCAR. The announcement has | | triggered a variety of responses from the parties involved. In this | | special section, HPCwire presents commentary from all sides of the issue. | | Readers who would like to respond to this issue can send comments | | for publication to editor@hpcwire.tgc.com. | | | | 8628 ) NCAR PICKS NEC, CRAY OBJECTS: DUMPING OR POLITICS? | | Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large | | NCAR/NSF have decided on a NEC system because it was found to offer | better performance. Cray Research raises complaints of dumping. Is | | this a serious charge, or will it simply politicize the matter | | further? | | | | 8627 ) FULL TEXT OF UCAR SUPERCOMPUTER ACQUISITION ANNOUNCEMENT | | | | 8629 ) FULL TEXT OF STATEMENT FROM CRAY RESEARCH ON NCAR CONTRACT AWARD | | | | 8630 ) FULL TEXT OF STATEMENT BY REP. DAVE OBEY ON NEC'S NCAR WIN | | | | Readers who would like to retrieve all the articles in this section at one | | time can order article 8658. | ============================================================================= FEATURES ===================================================================== 8631 ) NICHOLS RESEARCH DISCUSSES ITS MILITARY HPC INTEGRATION EFFORTS...6.3K by Alan Beck, managing editor Calling for a range of sophisticated integration services, the Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Plan has selected Nichols Research Corp. for the first two of four Major Shared Resource Center contracts. Nichols executives discuss their approach in an exclusive HPCwire interview. 8632 ) ANALYSTS COMMENT ON SUN'S PURCHASE OF CRAY'S SPARC-BASED BUSINESS..4.6K by Alan Beck, managing editor Industry watchers respond to Sun's announcement of the acquisition of the Cray Research Business Systems Division from Silicon Graphics. The general consensus is "good idea." Plans for the purchase were made public May 17. 8633 ) HITS & HISSES: SCALABILITY IS OBVIOUSLY MOOT.......................9.4K Compiled by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large This H&H includes a number of comments from HPCwire readers who make it clear that scalability is not an ipso facto good thing but is moot -- which means, as Joel Williamson of HP/Convex notes, "subject to debate." SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 8634 ) SEVERE STORMS: THREE NEW RESEARCH ANGLES AT NCAR...................6.8K by Bob Henson, NCAR What makes the difference between a stormy spring day and a sunny one? How can a computer program help warn aviators of imminent storminess? What are the chemical and electrical exchanges between thunderstorms and the air around them? Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are addressing these questions. 8635 ) EXEMPLAR SELECTED FOR AUTOMATED FINGERPRINT ID SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT..4.2K In its efforts to modernize and automate the Federal Bureau of Investigation's identification management services, Lockheed Martin has begun a phased installation of HP's Exemplar servers, which feature scalable parallel processing (SPP). 8636 ) $250,000 PRIZE OFFERED FOR ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR NANOTECHNOLOGY....3.4K Foresight Institute, a not-for-profit organization dealing with nanotechnology related issues, will award a cash prize for the design and construction of a functional nanometer-scale robotic arm and computing device with specified performance characteristics. 8637 ) FORD MOTOR COMPANY SELECTS CORNELL THEORY CENTER AS HPC PARTNER....2.2K Ford Motor Company has joined Cornell Theory Center's (CTC) Corporate Partnership Program (CPP). Ford plans to apply CTC's high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities to run simulations involving under-body, under-hood, power trains, and exteriors. COMMERCIAL NEWS 8638 ) TRW WINS NCCI CONTRACT FOR WORKPLACE INJURY DATA WAREHOUSE.........3.4K TRW has been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract by the National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc. (NCCI) to design and install a new computer system that will serve as a national clearinghouse for information on workers' compensation claims. The system will be based on an Amdahl superserver and the Sun family of SPARC processors. 8639 ) ORACLE SELECTS PYRAMID, SIEMENS NIXDORF SMP SERVER.................2.1K Pyramid and Siemens Nixdorf have provided Oracle's Utilities Customer Service Solution Competency Center with an RM400 server designed to provide a scalable entry point for on-line transaction processing (OLTP) and decision support/data warehouse information management. 8640 ) HEWLETT-PACKARD SEVERS DEPENDENCY ON MAINFRAME COMPUTING PARADIGM..5.2K Hewlett-Packard has literally unplugged its dependence on the mainframe paradigm. The company now uses a client-sever model for its corporate network which serves more than 90,000 employees at 400 sites worldwide. 8641 ) PRICE WATERHOUSE ENABLES MAINFRAME APPS FOR 3-TIER CLIENT/SERVER...4.6K Price Waterhouse has teamed with Open Environment Corp. to develop an automated approach to migrating large legacy mainframe systems to personal computer-based, three-tier (N-tier) client/server applications. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ 8630 ) "The action announced by the NSF makes it all too clear that the agency's current leadership doesn't give a damn about how science translates into industrial production or jobs for American workers." -- Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wis. ___________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS_______________________________ | 7150 ) NETSTAR Gigarouter Chosen as CAIRN Project's Development and | | Research Platform | | 7141 ) FREE Trial Subscription to WEBster, The Cyberspace Surfer - | | Your Electronic Guide to What's "News" on the WWW. | | 7142 ) Call for Participation Supercomputing '96 Nov.17-22 Pittsburgh, Pa. | | 7122 ) WHAT DO USERS WANT FROM HPC PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? | | A special state-of-the-industry report. | |____________________________________________________________________________| NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== 8642 ) DEC, Microsoft and Oracle Will Bring 64-Bit Technology to China..1.8K 8643 ) New Company Applies Parallel Processing Power to WWW.............5.4K 8644 ) Japanese Scientists Develop Superparallel Computer...............1.2K 8645 ) Government Services Canada Receives Amdahl Processor.............1.8K 8646 ) ScaLAPACK Version 1.2 Released...................................4.4K 8647 ) Green Semiconductor Laser Enhances Optical Disc Storage Capacity.1.6K 8648 ) Oracle Rdb7 Running on AlphaServer OpenVMS Clocks at 14,227 tpmC.2.6K 8649 ) MIPS Ships Ten Millionth RISC Chip...............................2.1K 8650 ) Exabyte 8mm Library Used in "Back Door" Backup for Disk Arrays...2.0K 8651 ) Amdahl Completes Oracle Test-to-Scale Certification Program......2.1K 8652 ) U.S. Robotics Wins Pacific Bell FasTrak X.25 Contract............1.9K SHORT TAKES 8653 ) Product Watch: HP's New Parallel Server. Avnet's Alpha Migration..20K 8654 ) Corporate Liaisons: NCR & SABRE Launch Data Warehousing Effort....14K 8655 ) Financial Watch: HP Stock Splits. Scitex Reports Modest Earnings..10K 8656 ) People and Promotions: Vinton Cerf Receives MCI Innovation Award.7.7K JOB BANK ===================================================================== 667 ) Employment Opportunities.........................................2.5K From: E-Systems (3),Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Hitachi Europe (2), IBM Corp., NCSA, Hewlett Packard/Palo Alto, Sequent Computer. 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations...................................1.2K CONFERENCES ================================================================== 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated May 23)...................11K HPCwire INFORMATION ========================================================== 670 ) Masthead..........................................................2.2K 601 ) Subscriptions & Removals..........................................2.6K 602 ) Submitting Letters & Articles.....................................1.6K 950 ) Index of Back Issues...............................................11K 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 | |____________________________________________________________________________| *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** 8626 NEC WINS NCAR BID (HPCwire News Flash issued 05.20.96)............3.37K 8600 DOES "DESKTOP TO TERAFLOP" MEAN ANYTHING?.........................8.08K 8599 TERA'S BURTON SMITH SAYS MTA PROTOTYPE WILL DEBUT LATER THIS YEAR.5.55K 8603 NSF DIRECTOR NEAL LANE RESPONDS TO CONGRESSMAN DAVID OBEY.........3.47K 8657 TOP 20 REQUESTED ITEMS FROM THE PREVIOUS EDITION OF HPCWIRE.......1.80K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~