H P C w i r e The Text-on-Demand E-zine for High Performance Computing *** Jan. 31, 1997: Vol. 6, No. 04 Circulation: 16,707 *** This Week's Table of Contents Represents 124 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 -------------------- * -------------------- [ ] 70098) Technology Update: High Performance Fortran," a bulletin by Chris Willard of International Data Corp. (IDC), provides an in-depth look at the state of the HPF language and its impact on the evolving HPC market. Reserve your free copy of this report to learn more about HPF and what it means to your organization. ______________________________ IN THIS ISSUE _______________________________ | | | [ ] 10678) FEATURES: SGI RELEASES OCTANE DESKTOP 3D MACHINE | | [ ] 10683) SCIENCE NEWS: RESEARCH MOVES A STEP CLOSER TO QUANTUM COMPUTING | | [ ] 10686) COMMERCIAL NEWS: WWW BECOMING MOST COMMON OLAP INTERFACE | | [ ] 10689) NEWS BRIEFS: AVS AWARDED EC RESEARCH FUNDS | |____________________________________________________________________________| FEATURES ===================================================================== [ ] 10678 ) SGI'S NEW OCTANE ADDS LEAD ON THE DESKTOP.....................6.2K News Analysis by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large SGI's new Octane desktop 3D machines obtain very high bandwidth through a multi-port crossbar switch that handles I/O and peripheral traffic, leaving the CPU free to gossip with memory. [ ] 10679 ) HPC REACHES A TURNING POINT: AN INTERVIEW WITH GARY SMABY.....6.9K by Alan Beck, editor in chief In order to enhance its perspective on the rapidly changing face of the HPC marketplace, HPCwire interviewed Gary Smaby, principal analyst and CEO of the Smaby Group. [ ] 10680 ) HITS & HISSES: SUN KEEPING "STARFIRE" & FOCUS ON TECH SECTOR..3.7K Compiled by Norris Parker Smith, editor at large Chris Kruell of Sun explains that the "Starfire" R&D nickname for Sun's new Ultra Enterprise 10000 server will still be used. Sun has not abandoned the technical sector, and Starfire is intended to coexist with mainframes. [ ] 10681 ) PPI PROJECT STRIVES TO ADVANCE METACOMPUTING.................22.9K by Alan Beck, editor in chief To learn more about the challenges facing researchers in metacomputing, HPCwire interviewed Mani Chandy, director of the NSF Center for Research in Parallel Computing's Parallel Paradigm Integration (PPI) project. [ ] 10682 ) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.........................................8.3K The director and program administrator of Mansfield Enterprises, which has proposed creation of a non-profit, private enterprise computational and educational center, offer their comments on aspects of the PACI competition. SCIENCE & ENGINEERING NEWS [ ] 10683 ) UNIV./XEROX RESEARCH MAY BE STEP TOWARD QUANTUM COMPUTING.....3.5K A scientific development that has the potential to eventually enable computer calculations significantly faster than current technology allows was announced by researchers at City College of New York, the University of Barcelona, Spain and Xerox Corporation. [ ] 10684 ) MONET CONSORTIUM DEVELOPS 20Gb/SEC NETWORKING TECHNOLOGY.....11.2K Researchers have demonstrated a 2,000-kilometer networking testbed with 2.5 Gb per second of digitized information on each of eight channels of light -- each channel another lane on a 20-billion-bit-per-second information superhighway. [ ] 10685 ) SUN SUPERCOMPUTER DETAILS PACIFIC NORTHWEST WEATHER PATTERNS..6.2K A supercomputer is providing local details of the Northwest weather for the National Weather Service, the University of Washington and six local, state and federal agencies with an accuracy never before possible. COMMERCIAL NEWS [ ] 10686 ) OVUM REPORT SAYS WWW TO BECOME MOST COMMON OLAP INTERFACE.....3.5K Ovum, an independent information technology (IT) analyst group, has announced research results on the market for on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tools, indicating the Web will become the most common interface to OLAP applications for most users within three years. [ ] 10687 ) SUNSYSTEMS CLIENT/SERVER S/W SUPPLIER NOTES DVPT. STRATEGY....4.6K Systems Union, supplier of the SunSystems range of client/server business and financial software, has announced a product development strategy to re-architect SunSystems for the next millennium. [ ] 10688 ) SURVEY REVEALS PROBLEMS WITH CORPORATE DATA RECOVERY PLANS....3.9K Securicor SecurIT's annual survey of computer use has revealed what it described as some major failings in corporate systems reliability and IT departments' disaster recovery planning. QUOTE OF THE WEEK ============================================================ [ ] 10681) (M)any people think that the way to exploit these new architectures is just to put a message-passing interface such as MPI on top of them. We think that's fine for the short term but the wrong thing to do for the longer term. -- Mani Chandy, director of the Parallel Paradigm Integration project ___________________________INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS____________________________ | | | [ ] 70099 ) FREE Trial Subscription to WEBster, The Cyberspace Surfer -- | | Your Guide to What's News on the Web | | [ ] 70100) WHAT DO USERS WANT FROM HPC PRODUCTS AND SERVICES? | | A Special State-of-the-Industry Report | | [ ] 70101 ) The Real Numbers Behind Net Profits | | * The Largest Study of Web Marketers Ever Conducted * | | [ ] 70102 ) PGI, CRPC and LANL invite you to attend the First Annual | | HPF User Group Meeting | |__________________________________________________________________________| NEWS BRIEFS ================================================================== [ ] 10689) AVS Awarded EC Research Funds for Intelligent Data Extraction....3K [ ] 10690) 3Com, Cascade and IBM Team for IP Switching Solutions..........1.9K [ ] 10691) Sybase Inks Enterprise Agreement with Federal Express..........1.8K [ ] 10692) Australian Gov't. Purchases 9,200 Lotus Notes DMS Seats........2.2K [ ] 10693) Strategic Networks Verify 4 Gbps SmartSwitch Throughput........1.8K [ ] 10694) Mercury Delivers 38 GFLOPS With 200-MHz PowerPC Processors.....1.9K [ ] 10695) Unisys to Install Publishing Solution at Gazette Telegraph.....1.3K [ ] 10696) CGI Awarded $3.7M for Year 2000 Conversions....................1.4K [ ] 10697) Cardiff Council Commits to ATM for Metropolitan Area Network...2.4K [ ] 10698) AT&T Certifies CrossComm Products for Compatibility............1.5K [ ] 10699) London Underground Buys FOCUS Six Front-End for Incident Mngmt...2K [ ] 10700) SeaChange Signs $1.7M Deal with Jones Intercable.................2K [ ] 10701) Linear Technology Opens Colorado Design Center...................1K [ ] 10702) Tolly Group Ranks Accton's SwitcHub-7s Fastest in its Class....2.8K [ ] 10703) Unisys Federal Systems Awarded $14.9M SSA LAN Contract.........1.4K [ ] 10704) Newbridge to Supply Switched Routing Solution for Intuit.......2.3K SHORT TAKES [ ] 10705 ) Product Watch: Sun Announces Scalable Storage Solutions.....18.9K DEC Ships 9GB Disk Drive. FactoryLink ECS Now Usable on HP9000. [ ] 10706 ) Financial Update: SGI Reports 2nd Qtr. Results..............15.4K Sybase Notes 4th Qtr. & Full Year Revenues. NCR Reports 4th Qtr. and 1996 Results. [ ] 10707 ) Corporate Liaisons: 1996 Ancor-Sequent Contract Canceled.....5.9K Sun and Lotus Announce Joint Initiatives. VeriBest to Resell Synopsys FPGA Express. [ ] 10708 ) People and Positions: FORE Appoints Thomas Gill COO............4K Mercury Names Vincent Mancuso VP, Gov't Electronics. David Champagne now CEO of Soverign Hill. JOB BANK ===================================================================== [ ] 667 ) Employment Opportunities From: Cambridge Parallel Corp., University of Tennessee, University of Illinois, Lockheed Martin, The Portland Group, SGI/Cray at Los Alamos, Raytheon E-Systems, National Center for Atmospheric Research, IBM Corp..............2.3K [ ] 604 ) Job Bank Rates and Regulations.................................1.22K CONFERENCES ================================================================== [ ] 2888 ) Calendar of Upcoming HPC Events (Updated 01.30.97).............6.6K 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) MAXSTRAT* | | [ ] 934) HP/Convex Tech. Ctr. [ ] 930) HNSX Supercomputers | | [ ] 921) Cray Research Inc [ ] 902) IBM Corp. | | [ ] 909) Fujitsu [ ] 935) Silicon Graphics | | [ ] 937) Digital Equipment* [ ] 932) Portland Group | | [ ] 915) Genias Software [ ] 938) VNI* | | [ ] 940) Eudora* | |__________________________________________________________________________| Firms marked with an * have updated their info within the last 30 days. -------------------- * -------------------- To date HPCwire has delivered 1,610,690 articles and product announcements to HPC professionals worldwide. This year, HPCwire proudly celebrates its fifth consecutive year of service to the scientific, academic, and industrial communities: 1992-1997. *** LAST ISSUE'S MOST REQUESTED ITEMS *** [ ] 10644) DESPITE NT POISONING, UNIX NOT DEAD YET........................6.9K [ ] 10642) SUN CONFRONTS IBM WITH NEW SMP COMMERCIAL SERVER...............6.9K [ ] 10643) PGI'S DOUG MILES COMMENTS ON THE STATE OF HPF..................6.3K [ ] 10654) Cornell Issues Statement on Federal Supercomputing Center Status.3K [ ] 10709) TOP 20 MOST REQUESTED ARTICLES FROM LAST WEEK'S HPCwire........1.8K ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~