Theme for 2010 is "Exascale to Enterprise" as adoption of OpenFabrics software expands across HPC sites and corporate datacenters

SONOMA, Calif., Feb. 18 -- The OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA), an organization that develops, tests, licenses and distributes multi-platform, open-source software (the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution - OFEDTM) for high-performance computing and datacenter applications, today unveiled the agenda for the 6th Annual International Sonoma Workshop, which is scheduled for March 14-17 at The Lodge at Sonoma.

The agenda, registration details and hotel room-reservation information are available at www.OpenFabrics.org. The workshop starts Sunday evening, March 14, with a keynote presentation titled "Requirements for Exascale Systems" by Barney Maccabe and Steve Poole from the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, home to several of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

The goal of the workshop is to plan the next steps in the evolution of OFED based on real-world customer experiences and vendor input. The theme of the workshop is "Exascale to Enterprise," indicating the range of IT applications that can be accelerated with OFED's energy and resource-efficient RDMA and kernel-bypass architectures for both high-performance computing sites and enterprise datacenters. Customer technologists, OFED developers and product managers will share their experiences and discuss future requirements for OFED during the workshop.

OFED, which runs in Linux and Windows environments, is now in production in more than 60 percent of the world's top 100 HPC systems and in mainstream IT sites. Organizations are embracing OFED for its ability to deliver sub-microsecond latencies that boost transactions per second and productivity, as well as ultra-high-efficiency computing that boosts ROI. Talks at Sonoma will discuss the use of several open-source middleware packages (e.g., AMQP, AppScale, Eucalyptus, Lustre, MPI, NFS, RDS) that enable cluster computing, Web services, data warehousing, and financial applications that leverage OFED and high-performance fabrics.

OFED allows progressive IT organizations to take datacenter operations to the next level of scalability, cost-effective computing and high-performance storage with Ethernet or InfiniBand at speeds up to 40 Gigabits per second. A special exposition will show cabling and connectors at speeds up to 40 Gigabits per second, and a panel discussion will look at future technologies for speeds up to 100 Gigabits per second.

Many topics are on the agenda for Sonoma, including the use of OFED in data warehousing, advanced search and visualization, oil and gas exploration, virtualization and cloud computing, hybrid and multicore architectures, distributed systems, fast messaging for financial services, and much more.

The Sonoma Workshop provides attendees with invaluable networking opportunities where they are able to make connections and deepen relationships with a targeted group of professionals from many organizations, including end users, server and storage OEMs, switch and adapter providers, cable and connector vendors, and the core team of OFED developers. Early Bird registration for the workshop is available through February 28 for $495. After that date, the registration cost will be $595.

Individuals who would like to participate in the Sonoma Workshop but are unable to attend in person may register for a live WebEx feed from the workshop. The WebEx feed is available for $500 per day. More information is available at www.OpenFabrics.org.

Sonoma Workshop sponsors are: AMD, Chelsio, Mellanox, Oracle, Voltaire and the IBTA. Cable Exposition sponsors are: Cinch, FCI, Luxtera, Mellanox, Volex and Zarlink.

About the OpenFabrics Alliance

The OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA) is a 501(c)(6) non-profit association that develops, tests, licenses and distributes the OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) -- cross-platform, open-source software for high-performance, low-latency and energy-efficient computing. OFED is used in business, research and scientific environments that require fast and efficient networks, storage connectivity and parallel computing. OFED is free and is included in major Linux distributions as well as Microsoft Windows. In addition to developing software, OFA conducts interoperability testing to ensure OFED meets multi-vendor enterprise requirements for security, usability and reliability. For more information about OFA, visit www.OpenFabrics.org.

-----

Source: OpenFabrics Alliance