The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing
November 06, 2008
In this interview, Appro CEO Daniel Kim describes how Appro has been addressing the needs of high-performance computing customers worldwide to do more with less. He also provides a glimpse into Appro's vision and opportunities for its supercomputer and high-performance cluster solutions.
Appro has announced a number of high-profile customer wins, particularly with the three U.S. National Labs. Can you recap some of these wins and explain their significance?
Daniel Kim: Appro has been working with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) for about four years. LLNL is one of Appro's top customers for supercomputing projects. Appro has installed several cluster solutions at their site, reaching an approximate total peak performance of 480 Teraflops of supercomputing power. These Appro clusters represent the largest Linux clusters installed at LLNL today.
More recently, we have been working with all three National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) National Labs -- Lawrence Livermore plus Sandia and Los Alamos -- as part of the Tri-Lab Linux Capacity Cluster (TLCC) program. Under this TLCC subcontract, Appro has provided nine clusters of various sizes ranging from 144 nodes to 1,152 nodes with aggregate peak performance of 620 Teraflops and nearly 97 aggregate Terabytes of memory. These clusters are being used in the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program and the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) Stockpile Stewardship program. This Appro contract is significant because it marks the first time that the three laboratories have teamed up to purchase and deploy a number of systems sharing a single architecture design.
Also this year, Appro delivered a 95 Teraflop Appro Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer to the Center for Computational Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, one of Japan's leading academic research institutions. By the way, the Xtreme-X supercomputer is now listed as the second-fastest system in Japan.
Finally, Appro has also completed the delivery of a 38 Teraflop Xtreme-X Supercomputer to upgrade the compute infrastructure of Renault's Formula One team. The powerful Xtreme-X2 system is installed at the brand-new ING Renault Formula One (F1) Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Centre in the U.K. The supercomputer is being used by the Renault F1 Team to run full-car simulations for their 2009 racing cars.
These multimillion-dollar agreements show that Appro can design, integrate and deliver supercomputing solutions based upon customers' demanding individual requirements.
Why do you think Appro is finding such success with these and other new customers?
DK: Appro is applying its experience and expertise to design industry-leading supercomputing solutions that enable customers to do more with less, with a reliable and scalable infrastructure that offers a good return on investment.
Appro offers performance, reliability, flexibility and choice, so customers can select high-value supercomputing solutions that meet their technical requirements. We deliver open product architectures that improve bandwidth, performance scalability, reliability and availability while reducing latency and bottlenecks, to ensure the performance of customers' applications.
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