New Release: 2U Rackmount with 4 Alpha Processors.
Dec 10th, 17:48 UTC
Alpha Node Performance, 5.3GFLOPS in a 2U box!
Please title this page. (Page 2)
Date: December 8th 1999
Press Release
December 1999: Alpha Data Parallel Systems Ltd. of Edinburgh, UK are pleased
to announce the launch of the Alpha Node. This new and exciting product utilizes
four high performance Alpha processors in a slimline 2U rackmout unit. The
Alpha Node is unique in that it has been designed from the bottom-up to be
used as a building block for Beowulf systems and Linux clusters. The design
of both hardware and software has been optimized to provide the best performance
for scaleable computing. Prices for Alpha Node start in the region of $10,000.
"As Linux and Beowulf clusters push into the commercial and industrial arenas,
Alpha Node will be at the forefront of this technology providing a cost effective
and professional solution. The price and performance achievable with Beowulf
clusters make them viable alternatives to more traditional high-end computers
and supercomputers." comments Scott McConnachie, Marketing Manger. "Beowulf
clusters would use many PC chassises which carry additional features not
required by a pure processing node. Alpha Node replaces PCs with 5.3GFLOPS
2U boxes, when you consider up to 20 Alpha Node units fit into a single rack
mount enclosure, the price/performance /footprint advantage quickly becomes
apparent."
Alpha Data specializes in high-performance computing and offers a range of
hardware and software solutions for compute-intensive applications, providing
customers with scaleable, parallel processing systems and add-on boards.
Suitable applications include Digital Signal Processing (DSP), image processing,
molecular simulation, fluid dynamics, neural networks, weather forecasting
and financial modeling.
Alpha Node Product Highlights
* Processors: 4 * Alpha up to 667MHz, each processor supports up to 1GB SDRAM
and 8MB level 3 cache.
* Expansion and Clustering: 8 * 100 Base TX Fast Ethernet and 4 * PMC (PCI
Mezzanine Card) sites for further expansion and integration of many PMC cards
such as Frame Grabbers or Fiber Channel Interface cards. This gives an excellent
scope to add a huge number of third-party PMC cards opening up the Alpha
Node to many diverse applications.
* Software: supplied bundled with Red Hat Linux and Parallel Processing software
such as MPI, PVM GUI debugger, performance monitor and code editor.
For more information please visit
http://alphadata.co.uk, contact
sales@alphadata.co.uk or phone
+44 131 555 0303
- END -
(Submitted by Scott McConnachie of Alpha Data Parallel Systems)
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