March 11 -- T-Platforms company, the leader of the Russian supercomputing industry, in 2008 became the number one HPC systems provider in Russia and the CIS having supplied 32 percent of the overall supercomputing power in the region. Moreover, T-Platforms showed the fastest growth: while the total combined performance of all HPC systems installed on those territories increased by 40 percent, the overall performance of T-Platforms' deliveries grew by 103 percent. Due to information on some HPC systems in Russia is strictly classified, the market was measured by the total performance of the systems upon which data is available and can be verified.

Unlike with other industries, the most justified approach to measure a supercomputer market would be to assess the total performance of HPC installations in a region rather than the sales volumes of system providers. In supercomputing, a successful project means more computing power for less money, and it is the ability to deliver better price/performance which makes a system developer competitive. Therefore, to estimate a vendor's market share correctly one should look at the total performance of its deliveries rather than at its customers' spendings.

T-Platforms has summed up the results of the year 2008 estimating vendors share of the Russia&CIS supercomputer market. The market share volumes were assessed by the combined peak performance of HPC installations deployed by a vendor in the region during the year*. As only original system manufacturers, or vendors, were rated, the HPC projects implemented by integrators and based on a known vendor's supercomputing platform were attributed to the respective vendors.

The information for analysis was provided by the Supercomputers.ru Web project which collects data on the supercomputer market of Russia and the CIS countries. The project maintained by the Research Computing Center of the Moscow State University hosts the list of the Top 50 most powerful HPC systems in the region, and today is recognized as the most complete and reliable source of information on the local supercomputer market. It should be noted that strictly classified systems upon which no information is available to either Supercomputers.ru or anyone else could not have possibly been taken into account while performing this analysis.

The total combined peak performance of all HPC systems installed in 2008 is 290.40TFlops, which is 39.7 percent higher than that of 2007. The number of supercomputers deployed in 2008 appeared a bit less as compared to 2007: 37 systems against 40. At the same time, the average peak performance of the installed systems grew considerably -- from 5.2TFlops to 7.85TFlops.

The "big three" vendors -- Hewlett Packard, IBM, and T-Platforms -- still dominate the Russian HPC market. In 2008 Silicon Graphics became the only "newcomer": its only installation featured among the most powerful HPC systems of Russia and the CIS turned SGI from a minor into a substantial market player with a share of 9.32 percent.

The year 2008 was marked by a change of the Russia&CIS HPC market leader: IBM gave in its top position to T-Platforms, the only Russian manufacturer of original equipment for supercomputing. T-Platforms made an impressive breakthrough and left the worldwide giants behind. At the year-end T-Platforms occupied 32.65 percent of the market, Hewlett Packard -- 31.66 percent, and IBM -- 23.62 percent.

To assess the market players growth dynamics we compare the total combined peak performance of the installations deployed by vendors through the year. T-Platforms reached the most impressive results by having doubled its share -- by 103 percent. This fact demonstrates that it was the Russian company who made the major contribution to the market growth. Hewlett Packard showed a slower growth by 28 percent, and IBM appeared the only company of the "big three" who delivered less supercomputing power on the Russia&CIS market than last year.

As for the number of the completed HPC projects, T-Platforms remained the continuous leader with 16 supercomputer systems built in 2008. IBM and Hewlett Packard built less than 10 systems each. The Top 50 rating of the most powerful computers of Russia&CIS hosted by Supercomputers.ru also justifies T-Platforms' strong position on the local market -- the installations of the Russian company constitute 36 percent of the latest edition of the list.

* Sources: Supercomputers.ru, T-Platforms information

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Source: T-Platforms