HPCwire: REvolution Releases Three New Packages for R

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July 01, 2009

REvolution Releases Three New Packages for R

Easy to use parallel programming features available to all R users; faster computation now possible across multiple processors, clusters and clouds on Windows and Unix/Linux Systems

NEW HAVEN, Conn., July 1 -- REvolution Computing, the leading commercial provider of software and support for the "R" statistical computing language, announced the release of three new packages for R designed to allow all R users to more quickly handle large, complex sets of data: iterators, foreach and doMC.

Iterators implements the "iterator" data structure familiar to users of languages like Java, C# and Python to make it easy to program useful sequences -- from all the prime numbers to the columns of a matrix or the rows of an external database.
Foreach builds on the "iterators" package to introduce a new way of programming loops in R. Unlike the traditional "for" loop, foreach runs multiple iterations simultaneously, in parallel. This makes loops run faster on a multi-core laptop, and enables distribution of large parallel-processing problems to multiple workstations in a cluster or in the cloud, without additional complicated programming. foreach works with parallel programming backends for R from the open-source and commercial domains.
doMC is an open source parallel programming backend to enable parallel computation with "foreach" on Unix/Linux machines. It automatically enables foreach and iterator functions to work with the "multicore" package from R Core member Simon Urbanek.

The new packages have been developed by REvolution Computing and released under open source licenses to the R community, enabling all existing R users to take advantage of innovative new ways to program algorithms in parallel using the R language.

REvolution R Enterprise, the high-performance distribution of the R language from REvolution Computing, further extends this capability by supporting parallel computing on multicore Windows systems and for distributed computing on clusters of Windows, Mac OS X and Unix/ Linux systems -- including mixed operating systems. Parallel programming with foreach and iterators is enabled out-of-the-box. The subscription distribution, which is fully supported, includes many other commercial grade features such as fault tolerance that are completely transparent to the user and require no additional programming.

REvolution R Enterprise is the easiest way to convert existing, slow-running R computations into fast, fault-tolerant parallel processing on any workstation or cluster. The iterators, foreach and doMC packages further enhance REvolution R Enterprise's high-performance computing functionality, which is unavailable in any other distribution. In addition to the new packages, REvolution R Enterprise offers:

Easy-to-learn parallel programming for deployment across multiple processors and clusters.
Support for heterogeneous clusters.
Fault-tolerance to prevent incomplete computations.
Easy conversion of existing, slow-running R computations into fast, fault-tolerant parallel processing on a workstation or cluster.
Full functionality on Microsoft Windows (including 64-bit Windows) as well as Linux/Unix and MacOS.
Full configuration and application support out of the box.

REvolution's VP Product Management Sue Ranney said, "We are excited to release these packages to the community in order to further scalability of analytic applications and packages in the R language, and to enable enterprises to switch to cost effective scalable analytics, fully supported on all platforms with REvolution's commercial grade distribution."

"Working in tandem with the R Core development team and on their own," said Ranney, "REvolution's engineers continue to push the boundaries of what can be achieved in R. The results mean greater computational and analytical power for customers handling large sets of time-sensitive, mission-critical data."

For more information about REvolution Computing, visit www.REvolution-Computing.com.

About REvolution Computing

New Haven, Conn.-based REvolution Computing is the leading commercial provider of software and support for the "R" statistical computing language. Its products, including REvolution R and REvolution R Enterprise, enable statisticians, scientists and others to create superior predictive models and derive meaning from large sets of mission-critical data in record time. REvolution Computing works closely with the R community to incorporate the latest developments in open source R, and with its clients to support their efforts to produce groundbreaking innovations in life sciences, financial services, defense technology and other industries where high-level analytics are crucial to success. At REvolution Computing, "We do the math."

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Source: REvolution Computing

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