HPCwire: Appro Announces Xtreme-X2 Supercomputer

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February 29, 2008

Appro Announces Xtreme-X2 Supercomputer

MILPITAS, Calif., Feb. 26 -- Appro, a leading provider of high-performance enterprise computing systems, today announced the launch of its second Xtreme-X Supercomputer offering, the Appro Xtreme-X2, based on dual-socket, Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. This supercomputer series represents a next-generation platform based on scalable clusters that brings all of the advantages of the company's expertise in high-performance computing (HPC) to a cost-effective, highly available, scalable, and energy-efficient architecture.

"Appro's new Xtreme-X Supercomputer Series is focused on addressing the HPC cluster market which is growing by over 30 percent a year and already exceeds 60 percent of all HPC server sales. Appro is focusing its product design to address key customer requirements including system management concerns and price/performance on user applications in large-scale cluster environments," said Steve Conway, research vice president, technical computing, IDC.

The Appro Xtreme-X2 offers exceptional value and impressive price/performance with a significantly reduced TCO for HPC IT organizations. It features a reliable and scalable architecture with 128 nodes/512 Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors and 4.5TF of computing power in a single 44U equipment rack. It provides 4TB of memory, hot-swappable blades, redundant cooling fans, and efficient "Power-Factor-Corrected" redundant power supplies. Appro's Xtreme-X2 Supercomputer offers a new Directed Airflow cooling configuration designed to reduce datacenter floor space by 30 percent while maximizing power and cooling efficiency. It also features redundant (Dual Rail) Infiniband connections with low latency Mellanox ConnectX host channel adapters as well as a dual-rail Ethernet management fabric and network switches with all critical components being easily accessible, hot-swappable, and redundant for reliability and serviceability. For manageability of the system, the Appro Cluster Engine Software has a carefully layered architecture offering a complete lights-out management solution that comes pre-installed with every system. This software suite offers a web-based management interface that is easy-to-use, making it possible to control the Appro Xtreme-X system from any location. The management modules include Fabric Management, Server Management, Cluster Management and Resource Management. In addition, it supports multiple networking topologies to achieve maximum reliability, performance and high availability to include diskless configuration and network failover.

"The Appro Xtreme-X2 combines the power of AMD 64 technology with a well balanced high performance computing architecture," said Jim Ballew, CTO of Appro. "This combination delivers outstanding performance, scalability, availability, and manageability based on a high-bandwidth and low-latency infrastructure required for today's high performance computing and production system availability requirements."

"AMD and Appro have long collaborated to deliver scalable, high-bandwidth computing solutions that directly address the increasing demands of our HPC customers," said Patrick Patla, director of product management, Server/Workstation Division, AMD. "Powered by native Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors with AMD's Direct Connect Architecture for high-throughput responsiveness and scalability to improve overall system efficiency, the new Appro Xtreme-X2 Supercomputer provides reliable, energy-efficient computing with outstanding system-level performance."

In addition, Appro offers Professional Services delivering closed-loop solution management, up-front consulting, pre-integration and testing with pre-sales and post-sales support. Appro's Xtreme-X Services supports Linux operating environments, with configurations that provide exceptional performance across a wide range of HPC applications such as aerospace and automotive engineering simulations, petroleum discovery and production, scientific visualization, seismic research, weather and environmental sciences research, government research and defense.

Appro Xtreme-X2 Supercomputer will be available in March 2008 with configurations starting at 64 nodes, with 128 Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors per rack cabinet. Pricing information may vary by system configuration. Contact an Appro sales representative for more information.

About Appro

Appro is a leading developer of innovative high-end workstations, density-managed servers, clusters and supercomputers for the high-performance and enterprise-computing markets. Appro accelerates technical applications and business results through balanced architecture, open standards and engineering expertise. Appro headquarters is in Milpitas, Calif., with an R&D/manufacturing center in Asia and a sales and service office in Houston. To learn more go to http://www.appro.com.

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Source: Appro International, Inc.

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