H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** Nov. 15, 1996: Vol. 5, No. 47 Circulation: 16,488 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 240 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 -------------------- * -------------------- 70036 ) Impactdata Launches Breakthrough Architecture For Network Storage Solutions ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | 10446) FEATURES: HOW WELL WILL CRAY'S NEW T3E 900 PERFORM? | | 10452) SCIENCE NEWS: TERA'S ARCHITECTURE TO BE TESTED AT SDSC | | 10454) COMMERCIAL NEWS: SURVEY FINDS SKEPTICISM OF VIRTUAL LANS | | 10456) NEWS BRIEFS: NEW FIRST PLACE HOLDER IN TOP500 LIST | |____________________________________________________________________________| 70037) HP TO ADOPT PORTLAND GROUP'S HPF FOR EXEMPLAR SERVERS AND SERIES 9000 WORKSTATIONS FEATURES ===================================================================== 10446 ) CRAY'S T3E 900: "FIRST TERAFLOP SYSTEM"...........................8.7K Commentary by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Cray Research announces the T3E-900, said to be the world's first commercially-available TFLOP product. But when will TFLOP versions actually work? How about a new performance metric, the Ballyhoo? 10447 ) COMPUTING AT DKRZ: OBSERVATIONS OF THE APPLICATION SOFTWARE GROUP.8.2K by Alan Beck, editor in chief The German Climate Research Computing Centre's (DKRZ) application software specialist Mike Ashworth offers his perspectives and those of group leader Volker Guelzow on various topics, including the Centre's accountability, salient features of kernel message passing benchmarks, and the T3D. 10448 ) HITS & HISSES: THE CRAY: APPROVAL & DIFFERENCES...................7.1K Compiled by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Mrs. Cray likes the idea of "Cray" as a scientific unit of measurement. So does everyone else. But there are many proposals for the specifics: 1Cr=1 floating point operation, 1Cr= 1 bit/sec., and more. 10449 ) PARALLELISM IN THE MIDST OF A METAMORPHOSIS......................15.1K by IDC Analyst Christopher G. Willard, Ph.D. International Data Corp analyst Chris Willard considers how the variety of new parallel technologies can be meaningfully delineated, and how those different approaches to parallelism will impact upon specific market segments in the near future. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS 10450 ) DOE, NATIONAL LABS JOIN WITH UNIVERSITIES TO PUSH SC ENVELOPE......12K The U.S. Dept. of Energy in collaboration with its three national security laboratories has recently announced formation of a multi- million dollar, multi-year program to create university Centers of Excellence to assist in development of large-scale computer simulation. Included in this article is the latest Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) fact sheet. 10451 ) SDSC TO DEBUT IMMERSIVE COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENMT AT SC'96.......6.5K At Supercomputing '96 (November 17-21) in Pittsburgh, SDSC researchers will demonstrate publicly for the first time a new Immersive Collaborative Environment (ICE) with a specific application in protein structure analysis. 10452 ) UCSD, SDSC GET $4.2M GRANT TO TEST MULTI-THREADED ARCHITECTURE......6K Tera Computer's first multi-threaded architecture machine, due to be installed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center early in 1997, will receive a thorough evaluation. Some researchers believe the novel approach may hold a key to petaflops-level performance in the next century. 10453 ) IDSS MANAGEMENT COULD MITIGATE WATER DISPUTES.......................7K Aris Georgakakos, head of Georgia Tech's Environmental Hydraulics and Water Resources Group and associate chair for research in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering has developed an integrated decision support system designed to ascertain the stability of potable resources. COMMERCIAL NEWS 10454 ) SNC SURVEY FINDS SKEPTICISM ABOUT VIRTUAL LANS, ATM...............6.4K An informal survey of 1,400 NetSwitch '96 seminar attendees, conducted by Strategic Networks Consulting, yielded data indicating that switched technology has arrived at an important crossroads in the commercial marketplace. 10455 ) FROST & SULLIVAN RESEARCH SHOWS FAST ETHERNET WORKGROUP GROWTH....6.1K Interviews conducted with a large number of information technology vendors appear to indicate that the demand for high-speed LANS is not only significant but also continues to expand, due to extensive utilization of a variety of data-intensive applications. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ 10447 ) "The main lesson is that for data structures like this the communications performance depends on the memory performance, and you need to think a bit about how, or even whether, to pack data into contiguous buffers." -- Mike Ashworth, applications software specialist, German Climate Research Computing Center (DKRZ) __________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS_______________________________ | 70038 ) Fujitsu Will Feature The World's Most Powerful Computer Technology | | at SC'96. Visit Booth #325 For Chance to Win a Fujitsu Notebook PC!| | 70039 ) SGI and CRAY Interviewing in Pittsburgh at Supercomputing '96 | | 70040 ) Sales, Software Analysts See HNSX/NEC at SC '96 | | 70041 ) High Tech Opportunities in The Last Frontier. | | 70042 ) DATATAPE has Sales, Systems Engineers., Sr. Programmer, Marketing | | Opportunities | | 70043 ) Visit Sun's Hospitality Suite at Doubletree Hotel Tuesday, 11/19 | | 6:00-7:00 pm.See SC'96 Job Opportunities bulletin board | | for Suite Number. | | 70044 ) ECMWF and PDC, the Parallel Research Center at KTH Univ., | | Stockholm, Accept FUJITSU VPP Systems. | | 70045 ) FREE Trial Subscription to WEBster, The Cyberspace Surfer -- | | Your Guide to What's News on the Web | | 70046 ) WHAT DO USERS WANT FROM HPC PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? | | A Special State-of-the-Industry Report | | 70047 ) The Real Numbers Behind Net Profits | | * The Largest Study of Web Marketers Ever Conducted * | | 70048 ) DB/EXPO '96 NEW YORK AT JAVITS CONVENTION CENTER DEC. 3 - 5, 1996 | |____________________________________________________________________________| NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== 10456 ) Latest TOP500 List Shows Trend Toward Industrial Applications.....3K 10457 ) Cray Research Announces T3E-900 Teraflops Supercomputer.........2.4K 10458 ) Prototype T3E-900 at PSC Has Projected 6-Times T3D Throughput...2.4K 10459 ) Hewlett-Packard Releases HP Fortran 90 Compiler.................2.6K 10460 ) IDC White Paper on HPC Centers to be Released at SC '96.........0.9K 10461 ) Impactdata Unveils Distributed Storage Node Architecture........3.3K 10462 ) SGI Unveils WorldWide Automotive Solution Center in Detroit.....1.4K 10463 ) Japan's National High Energy Physics Lab Orders Fujitsu AP3000..1.8K 10464 ) Auspex Aids NASA in Achieving Continuous Data Availability......1.5K 10465 ) MSU to Port MPI to Mercury Heterogenous Multicomputer System....2.2K 10466 ) World Bank Intranet Utilizes Excalibur RetrievalWare............1.5K 10467 ) Division Expands dVISE to Combine VR, Web, Real-Time Functions..2.2K 10468 ) NEC SX-4 to Support Focus and Disco Seismic Processing Systems..2.3K 10469 ) Amdahl Employs CompuServe to Upgrade Corporate Intranet.........1.6K 10470 ) NASA Installs Intergraph Mechanical Design Software.............1.6K 10471 ) Multi-tier Architecture to Enable New Scalable Applications.....1.9K 10472 ) Ancor Gets $7.4M Project To Provide Fibre Channel Backbone......1.2K 10473 ) Samsung Commences Alpha 21164 Chip Test Production..............1.2K 10474 ) BOF Installs and Evaluates Plastic Optical Fiber Network........1.3K 10475 ) Acorn Unveils 5 Network Computers Based on Oracle Specs.........1.4K 10476 ) Honeywell Chooses Informatica for Integrated Data Marts...........2K 10477 ) Matsushita and SanDisk Begin 64Mbit Flash Memory Production.....0.9K 10478 ) Mizar Awarded $2.5M Hughes Aircraft Contract for DSP Boards.......2K 10479 ) Ex-Kendall Square Sales Executive Settles SEC Charges...........1.2K SHORT TAKES 10480 ) Product Watch: DEC Unveils Prioris HX 6000 SMP Application.....14.8K Servers. Performance Awareness Supports Testing in Oracle Environments. 10481 ) Financial Update: Planning Sciences International Reports.......5.5K Record Revenues. Ancor Announces Q3 Results. 10482 ) Corporate Liaisons: Pyramid, Siemens Nixdorf, & Tandem..........5.7K Will Collaborate on Clustering Technology. Netplex, Unisys Announce Service Partnership. 10483 ) People and Positions: Fore Announces New Staffers. Vality.......4.8K Hires Data Quality Experts. JOB BANK ===================================================================== 667 ) Employment Opportunities From: Silicon Graphics Inc., HNSX/NEC, TROY Systems Inc., Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, Raytheon E-Systems IBM Corp., Cornell University, San Diego Supercomputing Center, University of Illinois............................................................2.1K 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations..................................1.22K CONFERENCES ================================================================== 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated 11.14.96)...............7.1K 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. Ctr. 930) HNSX Supercomputers 932) Portland Group | | 921) Cray Research Inc. 902) IBM Corp. 915) Genias Software | | 909) Fujitsu 935) Silicon Graphics | |____________________________________________________________________________| Firms with a star (*) have updated their material within the last 30 days. -------------------- * -------------------- To date HPCwire has delivered 1,563,962 articles and product announcements to HPC professionals worldwide *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** 10413 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR............................................7.5K 10416 BEOWULF-TYPE SYSTEMS TOP ONE GIGAFLOPS SUSTAINED FOR $50,000.....4.9K 10415 PARALLEL COMPUTATION SIMPLIFIED THROUGH SISAL....................9.1K 10414 HITS & HISSES: MORE VOTES FOR THE CRAY...........................6.5K 10484 TOP 20 MOST REQUESTED ARTICLES FROM LAST WEEK'S HPCwire..........1.8K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~