Orion Makes Desktop Supercomputing a True Reality

By Tim Curns, Editor

April 29, 2005

Orion Multisystems, Inc. is now shipping its 96-node Cluster Workstation, once again allowing for desk-side supercomputing. The high-performance computing platform follows last year's launch of the 12-node desktop Cluster Workstation. Both systems can be plugged into a standard power outlet, widening accessibility and supercomputing affordability worldwide. Multiple countries and market segments, including life sciences, geosciences, engineering, manufacturing, financial analytics, media and entertainment, already use the 12-node.

Users are adopting such products partly because of its ease of use; the significantly-sized cluster (~100 nodes) can be plugged in, turned on and working all in a few minutes instead of a few weeks.

“Having a cluster available at your desk as an individual resource, rather than a shared one down the hall, fosters a more interactive experience,” said Jim Lux, senior member of the engineering staff, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Orion is making clusters a convenient, low maintenance product with the user experience of an integrated device, like a PC. The new 96-node Deskside system provides an order of magnitude higher performance than the desktop, still without requiring extensive support staff and infrastructure.”

The 96-node Cluster Workstation, stackable up to four systems, significantly expands Orion's capabilities from a company providing mobile supercomputing with its 12-node desktop, to true capacity computing, saving customers the usage time, costs and IT infrastructure associated with large, shared backroom clusters.

Orion's DS-96 Deskside system is based on clustering, which is the best means of exploiting parallelism to generate very high performance. The system has the following innovative specifications:

  • Boots 96 individual computers, or nodes, as one system using single on/off switch.
  • No special cooling requirements and a maximum power draw of just 1500 watts from a standard power outlet.
  • System based on eight Orion Processor Array boards, with each board comprised of 12 individual nodes on a private network.
  • Each node a fully functional computer with its own x86 processor, chipset, memory, optional disk drive and networking capability.
  • Runs the Linux operating system and has exceptional input/output functionality, including dual 10-GigE fiber card and a 12-port GigE switch for ultra high bandwidth and massive data needs.
  • Provides a DVD/CD-RW and one 2.5″ hard drive on the head node.
  • Board can accommodate one 2.5″ hard disk drive per node on an optional basis.

“We are working in marine microbiology and genomics on projects that could help mankind in key areas, such as medical research and drug development,” said Dr. Rob Edwards, adjunct assistant professor, San Diego State University and researcher at the Fellowship for Interpretation of Genomes. “The Orion system has been instrumental in aiding our projects in the oceans, allowing us to complete research tasks more efficiently than we would be able to with larger computer clusters. We don't have a significant IT staff to manage a large cluster, and Orion provides systems we can conveniently operate and maintain ourselves.”

“Just as high-performance clusters of smaller servers have joined monolithic mainframes, server clusters are beginning to gain client-side analogues,” said Stacey Quandt, senior business analyst and open source practice leader, Robert Francis Group. “Such systems, if configured and deployed effectively, can deliver new computing options and enable more and new business benefits at many enterprises.”

Colin Hunter, CEO of Orion, believes this kind of supercomputing accessibility is helpful to the masses.

“Many areas of design are going through a 'modeling and simulation revolution,'” said Hunter. “For example, aerospace designers no longer use wind tunnels, instead they model air flow in high-performance computers. Similarly biosciences use super computers to model molecules in drug design; special effects designers model 3D with photo-realistic ray tracing using very powerful computers. Financial traders need real-time models of the many factors that govern prices of securities. This trend shows every sign of becoming exponentially more important.”

“Orion computers can help this alliance of designers with high-performance computers by giving every such designer, or trader, or scientist a supercomputer in their own office under their control: a real personal supercomputer. The result should accelerate the delivery of new designs to end users,” Hunter continued.

Orion also announced a new sales and marketing initiative for Europe. To date the company has generated significant sales leads in Europe and has already shipped systems to customers in several countries of the region. Orion is currently in discussions with value added resellers and distribution partners throughout Europe. The company expects to announce some of those relationships in the coming weeks.

In the future, Orion expects to improve the performance of individual nodes as well as add more nodes to the same power envelope. The company also plans to lower latency fabrics and create additional software packages to further exploit the advantages of the cluster-in-a-box architecture.

96-Node Deskside System Dimensions

27″ (height) x 25″(length) x 17″ (width)

96-Node Deskside System Pricing

Deskside model pricing starts in the $100,000 range. A detailed system data sheet is available upon request.

 

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