May 28, 2008–Wolfram Research announced today a groundbreaking solution for technical computing. Through its partnership with Colfax International, a major producer of business-in-a-box server systems, and in collaboration with Microsoft and Intel, Wolfram is making gridMathematica 2.2 available preinstalled on the Colfax CX6000 Workgroup Cluster.
“With the gridMathematica Colfax solution, researchers and analysts can focus on their work, rather than on IT administration. We’ve done the heavy lifting for configuration, performance testing, and installation,” says Roman Maeder, director of parallel computing technology for Wolfram Research. “Wolfram can assist with onsite setup and code conversion to help the smooth transition to the high-performance computing [HPC] environment.”
According to HPC industry expert Tony Hey of Microsoft Research, “The gridMathematica Colfax solution addresses a clear need in the market for a turn-key technical computing platform, usable by individuals without needing an IT workforce to maintain the system. Customers are demanding the precision and speed that only HPC can provide, but are concerned about the burden for accessing parallel capabilities.” This integrated hardware and software solution provides an expedient, straightforward path for migrating from a single-core desktop to a multi-core cluster. The preconfigured system removes the work required to set up and maintain the system, allowing you to just “get to work” with a minimal amount of set up. The systems are available via the Colfax International website.
Colfax International President and CEO Gautam Shah echoes Hey’s sentiments and adds, “This solution, with its attractive price point and strong performance, will allow even those with no previous parallel programming experience to experiment with the possibilities of these new tools. This finally removes the barriers to having access to supercomputing tools for any technical computing user.”
“The multi-core Intel-based server solution built on Intel Multi-Flex Technology has a combination of storage and CPU horsepower that is one of its kind in this space,” said Tom Rampone, Intel’s Sales and Marketing Group vice president and Channel Platforms Group general manager. “Intel Multi-Flex Technology is a breakthrough in terms of providing a variety of building blocks to system builders and solution providers such as Colfax and Wolfram Research to create a collaborative and powerful environment for technical computing.”
gridMathematica 2.2 couples the new functionality of Mathematica 6–such as dynamic interactivity, 2D and 3D visualization, and integrated load-on-demand data services–to the efficiency of Colfax’s cluster technology. Dynamic visualization brings a new way to look at data, while the load-on-demand data services allow access to and use of curated data in numerous fields, including finance, chemistry, mathematics, and astronomy, in parallel and multi-core computing environments. This latest gridMathematica version combines Mathematica‘s powerful control of parallel operations with broad platform support, 64-bit optimization, and seamless integration with Microsoft’s Compute Cluster Server.
In addition to over 1000 new computational functions and interface enhancements, gridMathematica features:
- Easy development and deployment of parallel applications
- Machine-independent portable code
- Support for multiprocessor machines, clusters, and grids
- Effective utilization of high-performance networking
- Efficient, adaptive load balancing
- Speculative parallelization for nondeterministic problems
For more information, see the gridMathematica website.