Product Watch: Data General Unveils ccNUMA Server. Seagate Ships Viper Tape Drives. PeopleSoft Adds Analytics Via NAG.

October 27, 2000

SHORT TAKES

DATA GENERAL UNVEILS NEW CCNUMA SERVER

San Diego, CALIF. — EMC Corp’s Data General division has expanded its AViiON server series with the new AV 35000 ccNUMA server. Designed for the largest database OLTP, enterprise resource planning, data warehousing or healthcare applications, the new server can scale up to 64 Pentium III Xeon processors.

Other features include a simple upgrade path from the company’s AV 25000 server, the use of fourth generation NUMA technology and high reliability for UNIX operating environments. Availability and pricing were not disclosed.

SEAGATE ULTRIUM-FORMAT VIPER 200 SHIPS WORLDWIDE

Costa Mesa, CALIF. — Seagate Technology, a leading manufacturer of tape storage products, announced that it began shipping the LTO Ultrium-format Viper 200 tape drives and Ultrium 1 data cartridges on October 17 to Seagate’s authorized distributors worldwide. The Viper 200 is Seagate’s lead entry into the product platform based on the Ultrium format of Linear Tape-Open technology, an open-format tape specification developed by Seagate Technology, Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. The Viper 200 protects up to 200 Gbytes of data per cartridge and with backup speeds of up to 115.2 Gbytes per hour and is available in both Ultra2 SCSI LVD and HVD configurations. “The Viper 200 is now available to meet the needs of end users in the midrange market that require high-capacity, performance and reliability. This feature-rich backup solution provides a strong opportunity for the IT community to embrace the many benefits of an open tape format as well as Viper specific features such as Dynamic Powerdown and FastSense, which become significant for many vertical markets that require highly-reliable protection of volumes of critical data,” said Brad Renfree, senior product marketing manager for Ultrium products, Seagate Removable Storage Solutions.

Seagate now supports system OEMs, automation manufacturers and the distribution channel with the Viper 200 in two SCSI configurations (LVD and HVD) and Ultrium-format data cartridges. External versions of Viper 200 will be available in early December. The Viper family of products will include the 2 Tbyte Viper autoloader available in January 2001 and native Fibre Channel connectivity in the first half of 2001. Seagate Viper 200 tape drives and Ultrium data cartridges are available worldwide through resellers, VARs, and authorized distributors.

PEOPLESOFT ADDS ANALYTICS VIA NAG

Downers Grove, IL — Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) and PeopleSoft Inc. announced that PeopleSoft has embedded mathematical and statistical software components from NAG’s C Library into PeopleSoft 8 Enterprise Performance Management products. NAG’s numerical software components will provide PeopleSoft 8 users with the speed and accuracy required for today’s demanding business analytics. PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management is a comprehensive, integrated suite of eBusiness analytic applications. This internet-based software enhances an enterprise’s ability to manage investments in employee, customer, and supplier relationships. The applications allow managers to proactively improve business performance and better execute strategy – all via the Internet. PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management helps organizations maintain, monitor, and analyze their strategic and statistical objectives. It also assists companies in understanding where they are making the most money, which projects generate the highest return, and which business processes add shareholder value.

“The inclusion of the NAG C Library provides users of the eBusiness analytics applications with the advanced statistical tools they need to effectively analyze information,” said Chuck Teller, vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management. “The combination of advanced statistics and PeopleSoft’s packaged analytic applications allow our customers to conduct the mission-critical analysis necessary to improve profitability and performance.” “NAG technology enabled PeopleSoft’s development team to deliver analytics to our customers faster and more efficiently,” said Louis Olds, vice president of Product Management. “We expect to reduce maintenance costs, allowing us to focus on new functionality in future releases.” Tony Nilles, NAG vice president of Sales and Marketing said, “PeopleSoft has done a superb job of integrating sophisticated analytical functions and making them accessible to customers. Peoplesoft 8 eBusiness analytics provides to users the functionality, speed and accuracy needed in today’s demanding business analytics. When results matter, people can trust the combination of NAG and PeopleSoft.” NAG is the world leader in mathematical, statistical and visualization software component technology. NAG software saves development time and offers speed and accuracy at an affordable price. When results matter, trust NAG. NAG has offices in Chicago, Oxford UK, Munich and Tokyo, as well as distributors worldwide. ( http://www.nag.com )

UNIGRAPHICS SOLUTIONS ANNOUNCES VERSION 17

St. Louis, MO. — Unigraphics Solutions Inc. announces Unigraphics Version 17, the latest release of its industry leading, high-end CAD/CAM/CAE software. With this release, UGS becomes the industry’s first major vendor to ship a world-class MCAD software product containing a deeply imbedded knowledge based engineering (KBE) language. Using Unigraphics V17, manufacturing companies can capture expert knowledge in their product designs through a process called Knowledge Driven Automation (KDA). KDA builds on Unigraphics’ Predictive Engineering foundation announced in September of 1999, and strengthens UGS’ reputation as the industry’s premier supplier of the best integrated and most robust solutions for collaborative product development. The Knowledge Driven Automation capability of Unigraphics V17 dramatically improves on competitive MCAD/KBE offerings by deeply imbedding the industry standard Intent! KBE language from Heide Corporation. Rather than using a KBE solution that requires data translation to and from its MCAD software, or developing its own proprietary KBE application, UGS has developed a tightly integrated offering that builds knowledge into the core of Unigraphics.

KDA consists of capturing and recycling knowledge that exists in many forms at every stage of the product life cycle, then re-using that knowledge to dramatically enhance the design, engineering and manufacturing process. With Unigraphics V17, companies can experience KDA through two distinct methods. First, for organizations interested in creating customized, knowledge-enabled applications to address company specific processes, Unigraphics V17 introduces a new knowledge-based engineering tool called UG/Knowledge Fusion. Second, to automate standard industry processes based on KDA technology, Unigraphics V17 offers new and enhanced Process Wizards and Process Assistants. Companies can create customized KDA solutions using UG/Knowledge Fusion, a rich new set of integrated software tools that enable the capture and manipulation of engineering rules and design intent. With Knowledge Fusion, users can develop company-specific applications and control Unigraphics objects via rules that extend well beyond the geometric definition of a product. For example, rules could be related to manufacturing costs, performance limits or aesthetic qualities. The resulting product design could be optimized based on one or more rules, and calculations could include goal-seeking iterations. For additional information on Unigraphics Version 17, please visit the Unigraphics V17 website at http://www.ugsolutions.com/products/unigraphics/v17 .

STRATASYS SYSTEM USED IN EVOLUTION PROJECT

Minneapolis, MINN. — Stratasys announced that its rapid prototyping system was used by Brandeis University scientists when they recently programmed a computer to follow the laws of evolution and design a basic robot. After the program allowed the robot design to evolve through 600 design generations, the computer sent the fittest design to the Stratasys Genisys 3D Printer, a rapid prototyping system, which built the 3-dimensional structure from the computer’s design file, requiring no tooling or human intervention. The successful automated evolution and construction project is a giant leap for artificial intelligence.

Founded in 1989, Stratasys is a manufacturer of rapid prototyping devices for industrial-, consumer-, and medical-product OEMs. The company’s patented Fused Deposition Modeling process creates solid models directly from 3D CAD files using ABS plastic, wax, elastomer, or polyester compound. For the last three years combined, Stratasys shipped more RP systems than any other manufacturer.

GENROCO BEGINS SHIPMENTS OF HOST BUS ADAPTERS

Slinger, WIS. — GENROCO, Inc. announced that the company has begun worldwide shipments of its new TURBOfibre GSN (Gigabyte System Network) adapters for PCI bus-based computers. Deliveries were made in September to a U.S. Department of Energy site, a Japanese supercomputer manufacturer, a European Atomic Energy Commission, and several other customers. The GSN-6466 bridges a 64 bit 66 megahertz PCI bus to parallel 20 bit copper or 12 bit optical network interfaces, providing payload bandwidth of 800MB per second in each direction – eight times the speed of gigabit Fibre Channel or Ethernet. During the summer, GENROCO demonstrated the GSN-6466 on Compaq, Sun, and IBM UNIX platforms at industry events in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The Company’s sales last month marked the first commercial deployment of GSN host interfaces for open standard superservers and workstations.

GSN is the first ANSI standard, gigabyte per second storage and network interface. This technology represents the highest bandwidth and lowest latency open interconnect, providing full duplex 8000 megabits per second of error-free, flow-controlled data transmission. Carl Pick, GENROCO Chairman & CEO, stated, “After a long transition from our successful gigabit per second storage and networking products, we are very excited to begin the Gigabyte per second era with our first shipments of hardware accelerated GSN host bus adapters. In addition to a positive affect on our revenues, this offering, along with our 10 gigabit bridging switch technology will help position GENROCO as the industry leader in building next generation Storage Area Networks.” GENROCO will show additional new high performance storage and network products in at the SC2000 conference and show in Dallas, November 4 through November 10. The Company plans to ship many of these new offerings before year end. Additional information about GENROCO can be found at: http://www.genroco.com .

CODEMESH HAS PLANS FOR JUNC++ION RELEASE 1

Carlisle, MASS. — Codemesh, Inc. ( http://www.codemesh.com ) is porting its JunC++ion product to several UNIX platforms. Soon, UNIX programmers will be able to use this patent pending technology to get Java and C++ programs to work together in one process. With JunC++ion, Java and C++ programmers can continue to work in whatever language best solves a problem, while relying on JunC++ion to integrate the mixed language solution. JunC++ion provides businesses with a new scope of solutions to integration problems; for example, C++ clients can be part of an EJB environment, Java servlets can declare C++ native methods to web-enable C++ applications, and both Java and C++ components can use a single set of APIs, such as JDBC for database connectivity. JunC++ion achieves this Java and C++ integration without programmers having to use JNI or CORBA.

“We’ve known all along that UNIX is a critical platform,” reports Alexander Krapf, president of Codemesh. “Many interested customers have told us to let them know when we’re out on UNIX. I’m happy to say that we’ll be contacting those customers soon. ” The UNIX platforms that customers have expressed the most interest in are Solaris, Linux, AIX, and HP-UX. If you’re interested in becoming a beta test site for one or more of these UNIX platforms, e-mail Codemesh at [email protected]. Let us know the specific UNIX operating system you are interested in, the hardware platform you’re running on, your JVM, your C++ compiler, and what your Java-C++ integration problem is. JunC++ion has been designed with maximum portability in mind. Therefore, JunC++ion features, including the Code Generator and the JunC++ion runtime library, are scheduled to be available on all supported UNIX platforms. The Code Generator creates C++ proxy classes that correspond to Java classes. The C++ proxy classes are used in C++ applications so that C++ applications can access Java and Java programs can access C++. JunC++ion also generates error checking and exception handling routines, thereby eliminating tremendous amounts of tedious and error-prone programming work. Once the Java or C++ application is running, the JunC++ion runtime library provides the low-level communication between the Java and C++ code.

BULL ANNOUNCES FASTEST COMMERCIAL UNIX SERVER

Billerica, MASS. — Bull announced a new high-end server for its Escala range, the Escala EPC2450, featuring breakthrough performance and an on-demand evolution capability combined with market-leading expert services. With an estimated performance of 215,000 transactions per minute, Bull’s Escala EPC2450 is the most powerful UNIX server on the market. The new system provides excellent commercial performance for 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-way enterprise servers, using PowerPCTM RS64 IV processor technology at 600MHz. The use of new copper, silicon-on-insulator technology and a larger memory capacity (up to 96GB) contribute to these exceptional levels of performance. Bull also announced improved flexibility of the customer data storage environment through the DAS 4500 storage subsystem and the AIX SAN Manager Version 2. This combination enables customers to create flexible server storage environments that can share multiple servers supporting either Windows NT and Windows 2000 as well as AIX and multiple UNIX variants. Bull customers benefit from the most open storage offer for their e-infrastructure.

The new Escala EPC2450 has built-in capacity upgrade features enabling the rapid evolution of the server as the business of the company grows. This new “Power on Demand” feature enables businesses to scale the system very quickly to handle requirements for more computing resources. For a nominal fee, organizations can purchase one or more additional processor boards that are initially disabled. When the need for additional processor capacity arises, the customer activates the new processor by simply activating an AIX command. This offer is particularly adapted to companies facing unpredictable business growth that requires a “real-time” adjustment of their system capacity. Customers benefit from an instant reserve of power without prior financial engagement. The new Escala EPC2450 comes with the world-leading clustering software, HACMP 4.4, designed to detect system failures and handle graceful fallback to a recovery system with a minimal loss of end-user time. HACMP 4.4.0 offers improved usability and more flexible installation options, plus increased hardware and software support for Escala customers with mission-critical applications. For more information, visit the Bull Web site: http://www.bull.com .

AGILENT SHIPS 2-GB/S FC HOST ADAPTERS

Palo Alto, CALIF. — Agilent Technologies Inc., a leading provider of innovative technologies for communications and life sciences, announced the industry’s first shipments of 2-Gb/s PCI-to-Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs). The 2-Gb/s capability means faster data exchange in storage area network (SAN) applications, such as Internet and Intranet access, digitized video, online transactional processing and other enterprise storage applications. Designed to serve emerging SAN applications, the products support FC Class 2 and 3, automatically sensing and communicating with both 1- and 2-Gb/s devices. “As the SAN market moves to 2 Gb/s, we are providing Fibre Channel support while ensuring interoperability with legacy 1-Gb/s products,” said Bob Whitson, worldwide marketing manager for Agilent’s Storage Networking Division. “We offer the industry’s most complete 2-Gb/s Fibre Channel offering, encompassing component and board-level solutions.”

These HBAs feature Agilent’s 2-Gb/s Tachyon XL2 controller ICs. They provide 64-bit, 66 MHz PCI-to- 2 Gb Fiber Channel performance, including bootable BIOS, FC data transfer rates up to 400 Mbyte/s, and support software drivers for operating systems including Windows 2000, Windows NT, AIX and Linux. The HHBA-5221 features a small form factor fiber-optic transceiver supporting 1- or 2-Gb/s link speeds. The HHBA-5220 comes with a standard HSSDC copper media interface for applications, such as rack mounted storage arrays, and enables field upgrades to small-form-factor, pluggable optical transceivers, such as the Agilent HFBR-5720L. Agilent is now sampling the HHBA-5221 with full volume production next month. The HHBA-5220 will sample in November, with production expected in January 2001. High-volume OEM pricing for the HHBA-5221 at market introduction will be $1,300. Agilent is a leading supplier of Fibre Channel solutions for the rapidly expanding SAN market. Additionally, Agilent is partnering with Adaptec to tailor Fibre Channel solutions for worldwide PC server OEMs and resellers. Adaptec builds Tachyon-based host adapters, and provides drivers and SAN management software backed by a strong sales, distribution, service and support infrastructure to help customers implement Fibre Channel in demanding, PC server computing environments.

BREECE HILL INTRODUCES DATA STORAGE LIBRARY

Boulder, COLO. — Breece Hill Technologies, a leading data storage automation innovator, announced the industry’s first four drive by 50 cartridge tape storage system that supports DLT, DLT1, Super DLT, and LTO tape drive technologies or interchangeable mixed media drives in the same library. Companies needing mid-range storage capacity and transfer rates, can now choose between digital linear tape (DLT) or linear tape open (LTO) drive technologies. The new 4.30/50 is the first of a multi- drive technology compatible family of data storage libraries available on the market. The new 4.30/50 is distinguished by a patented universal load plate design, which enables the library to be tape drive technology independent. This feature gives users greater choice and flexibility by allowing them to select the tape drive technology of their choice. The library can also support any mix of linear tape drives including DLT and LTO. The universal load plate technology enables drives to be promptly and effortlessly replaced, reducing downtime and saving service costs. The user’s investment is protected since a mounted drive can be quickly and easily swapped between any other Breece Hill libraries.

Breece Hill 4.30/50 library houses four tape drives of the user’s choice and 30 or 50 cartridge storage cells. “This patented technology gives users the flexibility to choose whichever tape technology they wish, combined with industry leading reliability, thereby lowering their overall cost of ownership” said Jim Watson, President and CEO, Breece Hill Technologies. Scalability is designed in with the ability to select a 30-cartridge configuration, and as data storage needs grow, expandable to 50 with a simple field upgrade kit. Physical drive space and throughput are not sacrificed in the 50-cartridge configuration. The new library is fully compatible with any storage area network (SAN) or network attached storage (NAS) architecture. To assist customers, Breece Hill offers a qualification lab where technical and engineering support will replicate the environment in which your network will operate and test all configurations of products with the desired storage application and hardware. Breece Hill’s network qualification program includes architecture development, demonstration, benchmarking, analysis, SAN & NAS training, installation and monitoring.

SPOTFIRE DELIVERS GENE SOLUTION

Cambridge, MASS. — Spotfire, Inc., a leading provider of Web-enabled decision analytics applications, announced the release of its third generation of gene expression analysis software, Spotfire Array Explorer. This latest version of Spotfire Array Explorer is fully integrated with the Spotfire.net Web-based decision analytics platform and provides researchers with four types of capabilities key to effective gene expression analysis. These include: links to internal genomics data sources and those of key content and instrumentation providers, powerful software for gene expression analysis, a Web environment, and the ability to collaborate with colleagues in the discovery process. For over two years, Spotfire Array Explorer has played an integral role in genomics research by enabling scientists at institutions worldwide to access information wherever it resides, visually analyze that data, and share critical findings with colleagues to accelerate technical decision-making and maximize the value of human genome data.

“Spotfire Array Explorer incorporates powerful gene expression analysis capabilities into an easy-to-use, Web application,” said Mike Newbauer, group leader, Applied Genomics at Bristol Myers Squibb. “This extensible architecture will enable our scientists to have seamless access to a broad set of genomics and proteomics databases and to take advantage of the immediate deployment of new functionality to accelerate our decision-making process.” “The demand for our decision analytics applications has been explosive,” said Bill Ladd, director of bioinformatics at Spotfire, Inc. “Spotfire is used at all of the top 25 leading pharmaceutical companies and 120 of the top biotechnology companies worldwide. This next generation of Spotfire Array Explorer delivers the powerful functionality bioinformatics professionals need to move research forward. Spotfire Array Explorer 3.0 is the only Web-based gene expression analysis application that empowers individuals to make more informed decisions and accelerates the discovery process for the company as a whole.”

PC-DMIS V3.2 ADDS DIRECT CAD INTERFACE

North Kingstown, R.I. — Brown & Sharpe’s popular PC-DMIS measurement and inspection software has been enhanced with several new features that increase its functionality and performance. PC-DMIS V3.2 provides a DIRECT-CAD Interface to such programs as CATIA, Unigraphics, Pro Engineer, SDRC, and the common CAD format, ACIS. Direct CAD interface eliminates the need for the software to translate the original CAD model in any way, assuring that accurate design data is used for part programming. Users can create part programs directly on the CAD model, reducing programming time and improving accuracy. The integrated graphics reporting function in PC-DMIS has been improved to make it easier for users to create and automatically position dimension boxes on the screen. A graphical layout tool allows “drag-and-drop” editing so that text, charts, documents, logos, and bit mapped images can be included in reports.

This latest version of PC-DMIS builds upon the customizable graphic user interface (GUI) introduced in V3.0. Iconized tool bars help streamline and simplify operation. For example, the Custom Tools Icon Bar provides a “one click” start routine for probe qualifications, part alignments and hyper reporting functions. Other tool bars include Construction Tools, Dimension Tools, Sheet Metal Tools, and an icon group that represents the auto feature recognition function. The tool bars can be floated anywhere on the screen or can be docked against any screen edge. Using the new 3D animation capability in the software’s full machine kinematics, programmers can include elements such as digitized images of parts and fixtures on the machine so that operators can visually verify the setup and program prior to actual part inspection. In addition, the programmer can insert special visual tutorials to help explain to the operator how to run a particularly complex job. A preview window identifies the feature being measured and allows programmers to review all measurements as they are created in real time. The Edit Window now includes a Summary Mode with an icon representation of the program and summary text. Integrated offline capability allows multiple programs to be open and edited simultaneously.

MTI SELECTS EMULEX LIGHTPULSE LP8000S

Costa Mesa, CALIF. — MTI Technology Corp., a leading provider of enterprise storage solutions with nearly $9O million in Fibre Channel SAN-based Vivant System revenues, and Emulex Corp., a leading supplier of Fibre Channel host adapters, announced that MTI has selected Emulex’s LightPulse LP8000S SBus Fibre Channel host adapter for use with its Vivant and Gladiator storage systems. MTI, which uses the Emulex LP8000 for PCI systems running Solaris, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and AIX, will now also use the LP8000S to provide high performance and flexible connectivity to Sun Microsystems’ SBus-based servers running the Solaris operating system. The LP8000S is based on market-leading LP8000 architecture, enabling seamless migration across Sun’s PCI and SBus servers.

“Emulex host adapters provide the performance, features and reliability we need to deploy complex storage area networks (SANs),” said Tom Raimondi, president and CEO of MTI. “We are pleased to be able to now use Emulex’s host adapters for SBus systems running Solaris. We believe the LP8000S will enable us to provide the same leading features in Solaris SBus systems as we have in Sun’s PCI-based servers,” he added. The LP8000S allows customers to leverage engineering investments already made for PCI systems to their SBus solutions using Emulex’s Solaris drivers and utilities. It also offers one of the richest Fibre Channel feature set available in the industry for SBus systems, and provides Emulex customers with a common “look and feel” on both PCI and SBus servers. The LP8000S uses Emulex’s advanced Fibre Channel chip, the high-performance, single-chip 64-bit Dragonfly ASIC. “The LP8000S provides MTI with a best-in-class Fibre Channel connectivity solution for SBus systems. It delivers high performance and provides sophisticated features that customers purchasing our PCI products depend on, including full-duplex operation, fabric support and multi-protocol support,” stated Paul Folino, president and CEO of Emulex.

LSI LOGIC AND VIXEL DEPLOY SOLUTION FOR WINDOWS

Bothell, WASH. — Vixel Corporation announced that it has teamed with LSI Logic Storage Systems, Inc. to deliver a Fibre Channel SAN-based server clustering solution for Windows 2000/NT based environments. Termed “SAN Cluster,” the solution is pre-configured and certified making it ideal for small to mid-size companies. Both LSI Logic and Vixel have certified the solution, and anticipate additional certification from the Microsoft Windows Hardware Qualification Lab. The solution employs LSI Logic’s MetaStor E2400 entry-level Fibre Channel storage system, Vixel’s 2100 Managed Hub with Zoning and QLogic’s QLA2200 series host bus adapter. SAN Cluster is designed for companies requiring mission critical, high performance e-commerce or high availability applications in Windows 2000/NT server environments.

“SAN Cluster helps NT users to overcome the data availability issues associated with today’s 24×7 business environments. As more companies introduce e-commerce based functionality into their business models, the continuous availability of server based applications becomes increasingly vital to their success,” said Brian Reed, senior director of business development, Vixel Corporation. “Because the Vixel 2100 Managed Hub performs like a switch at a considerably lower price-point, it is the perfect product to serve as the interconnect device for a high performance server clustering application targeted to smaller companies.” “The SAN Cluster is a low risk way to deploy an entry level server cluster to help increase business up-time, and it’s based on leading edge Fibre Channel SAN technology with plenty of scalable performance and capacity options,” said Gerard Meluso, director of alliances, LSI Storage Systems, Inc. “The MetaStor E2400 incorporates many of the advanced enterprise level features of the enterprise class E4400 making it ideal for small to mid-size companies who are looking to enhance the reliability of their server environment.”

PRESENTING PERSISTENCE POWERTIER 6.5 APP SERVER

San Mateo, CALIF. — Persistence Software, the Engine For E-Commerce, announced the availability of the latest version of PowerTier, the only application server that automatically generates end-to-end JSP-to-EJB code from object models created with popular modeling tools. PowerTier 6.5 is designed to bring applications to market quickly, with massive scalability and reliable sub-second response times for demanding environments such as financial services and Internet infrastructure. According to an independent benchmark performed by Advanced Systems Engineering Group (ASEG Inc.), PowerTier required 75% less hand coding than BEA’s WebLogic Server to develop the same application. ASEG measured how quickly real-life business applications can be deployed by assigning two developers to create an equities trading system: one an expert in PowerTier and another with equal expertise in WebLogic Server. Because of PowerTier’s patented development automation features, the PowerTier application was deployed twice as quickly as the WebLogic Server application (21 hours for PowerTier compared to 42 hours for WebLogic Server). ASEG will publish detailed results in November.

“We were really impressed with PowerTier’s ability to automatically generate most of the code required for this advanced application,” said Hal Mirsky, Vice President of ASEG. “PowerTier really sets a new standard for rapid application development. It greatly simplified the tasks of creating Entity Beans and their corresponding database schema.” “For all its advantages, Java doesn’t automatically win high marks for developer efficiency,” said Jim Barton, Chief Technology Officer, Persistence Software. “EJBs, Servlets and other Java components are complex technologies that require a significant amount of manual coding. By integrating a choice of powerful modeling tools and providing automatic code generation, PowerTier now does for productivity and time-to-market what it has always done for application performance and scalability.” Integrating seamlessly with leading object modeling tools such as Rational Rose, the latest version of PowerTier addresses the main challenges facing e-businesses today: rapid time-to-market and first-mover advantage. Persistence has for the last decade been a leader in accelerated enterprise application development with its patented Object-Relational mapping and automatic code generation. With PowerTier 6.5, Persistence extends its lead in time-to-market by allowing customers to use their favorite modeling tools to design their system, thus saving time by avoiding the overhead of learning new tools. Once the model is created, PowerTier automatically generates EJBs, JSPs, Database Schema, and even XML code with very little effort.

LINDA SUPERCOMPUTING AVAILABLE FOR THE POWERPC

New Haven, CT — Scientific Computing Associates, Inc., a leader in high-performance computing software, and Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. are pleased to announce that Linda Supercomputing is now available for the PowerPC using Black Lab Linux. Terra Soft introduced Linda as a powerful addition to their already strong and growing suite of applications, demonstrating their commitment to offering as complete and well supported a distribution as possible. “Through four simple commands to annotate codes and the precompiler, developers can use Linda to ëparallelize’ existing serial applications, enabling efficient, high-performance in a parallel computing environment. Less time consuming than hand recoding, less expensive than traditional supercomputing, Linda and Black Lab Linux PowerPC clusters offer an ideal parallel development and computing system,” says Terra Soft in their news release of October 9, 2000. “Linda offers our DOE Lab and other Black Lab Linux customers an efficient means of transforming existing serial code into a parallel environment. It’ s less time consuming and less expensive than recoding by hand – an exciting compliment to our Black Lab Linux product,” states Kai Staats, CEO, Terra Soft Solutions. “The release of Linda for the PowerPC opens up new opportunities for rapid and easy development of applications for parallel processing,” said Jerry Lipchus, Director of Sales at Scientific Computing Associates.

Linda, first introduced in the mid-1980s, was the first commercial product to implement virtual shared memory (VSM) for supercomputers and large workstation clusters. Linda is content-addressable, not address-based, making it much easier to build applications and fully utilize hardware capacity. Cost-effectiveness, speed and ease of use all are advantages of using Linda in Linux-based systems. A recent article, “Linux Gushes Savings for Oil Giant” (Computerworld, May 3, 1999) describes an application developed by Amerada Hess using Linda for Red Hat Linux that makes it possible for geologists to render detailed 3-D seismic images of sub-sea formations. The application was moved from an IBM SP2 to a 32-node Linux cluster, a move that saves Hess nearly $2M, according to Vic Forsyth, Amerada Hess’s Houston-based manager of geophysical systems. “Without Linda, a rewrite would have been required that would have delayed implementation by months,” said Forsyth.

DELL OFFERS PROMISE TECHNOLOGY IN WORKSTATIONS

San Jose, CALIF. — Dell, a leading direct computer systems company, is now offering its Precision Workstation 220 with a Promise Technology FastTrak100 ATA RAID controller, the world’s first Ultra ATA/100 RAID card. With this announcement, Dell becomes the world’s largest OEM manufacturer to offer Promise ATA RAID storage technology supporting Ultra ATA/100 drives. The RAID 0 (striping) feature of FastTrak100 allows Dell work stations to provide double the sustained data transfer rate of a single Ultra ATA/100 drive (up to 100MB/sec, sustained) and allows the server to combine two drive capacities as a single drive volume of up to 256GB. FastTrak100 cards are currently in volume shipments and carry a suggested retail price of $99. The RAID 1 feature allows data redundancy of a single drive while extending its performance above a single ATA/100. This feature automatically sends data to two drives with each save function.

“We are very pleased to be working with an industry leader such as Dell to incorporate Promise ATA RAID technology as an added benefit for end users,” said Promise Vice President of Sales and Marketing Sam Sirisena. “ATA RAID gives consumers the benefits and performance of traditional SCSI RAID systems at a fraction of the cost,” he added. The Promise Ultra100 card/chipset is the world’s first controller to support the new Ultra ATA/100 drives from manufacturers such as Quantum, IBM, Maxtor, Western Digital and Seagate. Ultra100 was released simultaneously with the official release of all Ultra ATA/100 drives June 5.

CREE REPORTS BLUE LASER RESULTS

Durham, N.C. — Cree, Inc. reported recent operating results for its blue laser device on silicon carbide (SiC). The company announced continuous wave (CW) lifetime in excess of 100 hours with an operating output power of 1 to 3 milliwatts. Neal Hunter, Chairman and CEO stated, “We believe we now understand the fundamental key to long life continuous wave operation on silicon carbide. Having reached this important milestone, we expect future progress to occur at a rapid pace. The performance reported today allows us to begin initial design work with systems manufacturers.”

The company has also demonstrated up to 100 milliwatts of CW power from a single device, dramatically exceeding the 30 to 40 milliwatt level presently required for read/write applications. This power level is believed adequate to meet the market requirements for virtually all consumer optical storage applications. The company’s commercial challenge now moves to further increasing lifetimes and reducing costs. North Carolina-based Cree, Inc. develops and manufactures semiconductor materials and devices based on silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN) and related compounds. The company’s products include blue and green LEDs, RF power transistors for use in wireless infrastructure applications, SiC crystals used in the production of unique gemstones and SiC wafers sold for use in research and development. Cree has new product initiatives based on its experience in SiC and GaN-based semiconductors, including blue laser diodes for optical storage applications, high frequency microwave devices for radar and other communications systems, and power devices for power conditioning and switching. For more information on Cree, visit http://www.cree.com .

COYOTE POINT ADDS SUPPORT TO EQUALIZER 5.0

Santa Clara, CALIF. — Coyote Point Systems, Inc., a price/performance leader in Internet traffic management technology, will unveil a UDP-enabled upgrade of Equalizer, an intelligent load balancing appliance, at Internet World 2000, Oct. 25-27 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, Booth 4141. Equalizer 5.0, shipping in November, will provide failover and high-availability for WAP devices and network-attached storage devices. Coyote Point is partnering with wireless hardware and software vendor Infinite Technologies to develop a complete WAP server clustering solution, and with serverless storage software vendor CrosStor to develop advanced high availability functions for network-attached storage devices.

Equalizer 5.0 will also feature a revamped user interface, enhancing the ease of use of Coyote Point’s industry-leading reporting features included in the base price of every Equalizer – a browser-based, real-time display of server and cluster performance. In December, Coyote Point will offer a gigabit interface option on a new high-end model, Equalizer 550, enabling bandwidth at up to 1,000,000 megabits. Allan Carter, Vice President of Marketing for Infinite Technologies, said, “The demand for more advanced high availability and high performance products such as Equalizer 5.0 indicates just how serious customers are about building reliable WAP infrastructure. This is further evidence that WAP adoption is expanding. We look forward to working with Coyote Point to meet our customers’ needs for effective WAP traffic management.”

AXS TECHNOLOGIES UNVEILS IMAGE TECHNOLOGY

Annapolis, MD. — AXS Technologies ( http://www.axs-tech.com ) unveiled its groundbreaking EyeSpy Image Server solution during Fall Internet World 2000 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. The EyeSpy Image Server, a patented, instant high-resolution imaging solution, was demonstrated during an exclusive invitation-only launch event before a crowd of e-Commerce professionals, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), software application developers, integrators and web caching suppliers. “We’re thrilled to launch EyeSpy Image Server at Internet World,” said John Ryder, President and Chief Operating Officer of AXS Technologies. “With more than 62,000 attendees, we chose this venue because it is the world’s largest B-to-B and e-Business Internet event.”

The EyeSpy Image Server utilizes cutting-edge parallel processing techniques to deploy applications with incredible, high-resolution visual content, allowing large format images to be shown as more than just low-resolution thumbnails. Unlike current technology, which must first load large images into memory and then decompress enormous amounts of data, the EyeSpy Image Server requests specific image parts from multiple disks that are then retrieved “in parallel” to ensure perfect scaling capability. The image details delivered by EyeSpy Image Servers are fully cacheable, allowing a dramatic improvement in the network traffic generated while accessing large images. With this new technology, The EyeSpy Image Server is able to provide the fastest, least expensive, and most reliable way to serve up digital imagery on the Internet. By offering virtually unlimited access to high- resolution images over the Internet, numerous industries will benefit by allowing images to be viewed more quickly and precisely than ever before.

LINUX WAN COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AVAILABLE

Ontario, CANADA — The Software Group Limited releases Linux drivers and administration utilities for its SGP hardware adapter to the public domain under the Free Software Foundation’s General Public License, version 2. The software is freely available as source code. The drivers interface with existing GPL synchronous wide area communications packages, connecting Linux with serial synchronous communications links running at speeds up to 4 Megabits/second. With these drivers and The Software Group’s SGP hardware, Linux applications can now connect directly with up to sixteen wide area network links running Internet-standard PPP (Point-to-Point) network, CCITT-standard X.25 or CCITT-standard LAPB protocols. The Software Group Limited supplies the GPL X.25 utilities, SGP hardware specific programs and driver source for anonymous download from its web site at http://www.wanware.com .

For system administrators, the SGP hardware utilities include a protocol trace and decode application along with a command-level configuration program to ease network management tasks associated with WAN links connecting to the SGP hardware. “The Software Group has increased the value of open software communications interfaces by adding network management components like protocol tracing to their drivers,” said Gary Aviv, Executive Vice-President and CTO at Computer Generation Inc., a leading provider of packaged products for the telecommunications industry. CGI widely deploys Wanware Linux as their X.25 communications router. The SGP hardware adapter uses bus mastering technology to reduce the overhead normally associated with many other WAN adapters. The SGP hardware adapter is available from the Software Group as a single-, dual- or quad-port adapter, for PCI or Compact PCI computers, and is configurable for RS-232, V.35 or X.21 electrical interfaces.

ENTELOS ANNOUNCES ENTELOS ADIPOCYTE CYTOLAB

Menlo Park, CALIF. — Entelos, Inc., a commercial leader in predictive biological modeling and disease simulation systems, announced the launch of Entelos Adipocyte CytoLab, a simulation model of human fat cells in culture. The adipocyte CytoLab system is the first from Entelos in a new product line of cell-specific simulation models. Adipocytes store and release energy and regulate body weight by producing hormones that either promote or inhibit the accumulation of fat. They are of particular interest to researchers investigating treatments for diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Scientists can use Entelos Adipocyte CytoLab for the design and optimization of experiments involving fat cells in culture, as well as results interpretation, target and compound selection, dosage testing, comparison of in vitro and in vivo systems, and knowledge management. The adipocyte CytoLab enables researchers to quickly and easily run experiments in silico that may be technically challenging to conduct in the laboratory.

“Our CytoLab cell-simulation systems are built on the same proprietary software platform as our PhysioLab disease-simulation systems, and they embody the same high quality of scientific expertise that our PhysioLabs are known for,” said James Karis, Entelos President and CEO. “The difference is that a CytoLab has significantly more detail on intra-cellular activities than is appropriate to include in a disease-level system. The CytoLab and PhysioLab systems can be used independently or can be used together to bridge the gap between cell and disease.” Among the cellular processes modeled in Entelos Adipocyte CytoLab are glucose uptake, insulin signaling, lipogenesis, lipolysis, beta-oxidation, and leptin production. By deploying CytoLab cell-simulation and PhysioLab disease-simulation systems within their organizations, researchers can significantly improve the time, cost, and likelihood of success of a company’s drug discovery and development activities.

THREE SOLUTIONS ADDED TO GEONET PLATFORM

Houston, TEXAS — GeoNet services.com inc, the leading Application Service Provider (ASP) serving the worldwide oil and gas industry, announces agreements to host three of the industry’s leading reservoir and production engineering application providers – Baker Jardine, Computer Modeling Group (CMG) and T-Surf. These providers – each featuring leading-edge applications – significantly enhance GeoNet’s portfolio of technical software applications, expanding its lead as the premier ASP in the oil and gas industry. “These contracts represent yet another major step forward for GeoNet,” said Eric Deliac, GeoNet’s president and chief operating officer. “We continue to add to our position as the industry’s first choice for world-class analytical software through partnerships with the most respected developers in the world.”

Baker Jardine will host its leading-edge suite of flow simulation applications on the GeoNet site, including: PIPESIM, a multiphase oil and gas production model for well and pipeline design; PIPESIM NET for complex well and surface network modeling; PIPESIM-GOAL for full field production optimization; and HoSim for horizontal and multilateral well analysis. CMG plans to host its leading suite of advanced reservoir simulators on the GeoNet site, including: STARS-Steam and Advanced Thermal Processes Reservoir Simulator; GEM-EOS Compositional Simulator; IMEX-Three Phase Black Oil Simulator; and WinProp Phase Behavior Simulator. In addition, both ModelBuilder and the outstanding Results 3D pre- and post-processing applications will be available. T-Surf provides a cost-effective, advanced suite of tools to explore and model reservoirs on Windows NT PCs and Unix platforms. Its flagship product GOCAD enables integrated multi-disciplinary teams to build earth models using shared data. The reservoir modeling process is facilitated by automated workflows, as opposed to serial manipulations.

DASSAULT INTEGRATES MICROSOFT VISUAL BASIC

Suresnes, FRANCE — Dassault Systemes announced to the manufacturing industry that it will integrate Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) into its product lines (SolidWorks, SmarTeam, CATIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA). Dassault Systemes will integrate VBA into future product versions to provide a more robust development environment to Windows users, increasing the customization and programmability of its solutions. The use of VBA as a component of Dassault Systemes’ Rapid Application Development architecture will allow customers, developers and partners to take advantage of the increased integration with the Microsoft Windows operating system, to add their own customized user interfaces and to develop custom functionalities connected with other VBA-enabled applications.

The new VBA features will allow developers to take advantage of a sophisticated set of programming tools to reinforce and extend the power of Dassault Systemes’ industry-leading solutions. As a result of this integration the entire Dassault Systemes product portfolio and other VBA-enabled applications will interoperate in a secure and flexible standard development environment. This enables Dassault Systemes solutions users to immediately benefit from lower development costs, better adaptability to change and reduced time-to-market for their solutions. “Embedding Visual Basic for Applications into our solutions perfectly fits with our Open Architecture strategy and confirms our joint efforts with Microsoft to provide customers with a large range of development tools in our digital manufacturing solutions,” said Michael I. Payne, Executive Vice President of Technology, Dassault Systemes. “Customers will be able to take advantage of VBA by extending and connecting our solutions to other tools provided in the Microsoft environment.” “We are delighted that Dassault Systemes is integrating VBA into its product lines to bring a higher degree of customization and functionality to its solutions,” said Chris Atkinson, Vice President, .NET Developer Solutions Group, Microsoft Corporation. “With VBA, Dassault Systemes can connect with other VBA-enabled applications to create entire line-of-business solutions.”

GENOMICA ANNOUNCES LINKMAPPER SOFTWARE

Boulder, COLO. — Genomica Corporation, a leading genomics software company, announced the commercial availability of its LinkMapper software product to be sold by Applied Biosystems worldwide sales force in conjunction with its genotyping systems. This event marks the latest milestone achievement of the product development and sales alliance between Genomica and PE Biosystems Group, a PE Corporation business now doing business under the Applied Biosystems name. The commercial availability of LinkMapper also signifies the first release of Genomica’s next-generation bioinformatics products based on a Java and Oracle technology platform. “This achievement is a significant milestone in our company’s operating history,” said Teresa W. Ayers, CEO of Genomica. “We are now entering the sales and revenue-generation phase of our partnership with Applied Biosystems and at the same time are bringing our first product, based on Java and Oracle, to the marketplace.”

“Genotyping applications are increasingly important in the study of human disease and molecular medicine research; we are committed to providing our customers with complete solutions,” said Robert C. Jones, Vice President and General Manager of Informatics at Applied Biosystems. “Having successfully achieved this latest milestone with Genomica, we are now prepared to offer a combined LinkMapper and GeneMapper software solution.” Under the terms of the alliance agreement between Genomica and Applied Biosystems, Genomica has developed and will maintain the LinkMapper software, which is a functional subset of the genetic-analysis portion of Genomica’s enterprise-class Discovery Manager genomics software product. LinkMapper is designed to work specifically with Applied Biosystems new ABI Prism GeneMapper High Performance Genotyping Software for genetic data management and analysis. Achieving this latest milestone signifies that the LinkMapper software has been developed, tested and manufactured and is now ready for immediate purchase and delivery to Applied Biosystems’ customers.

VERSANT ANNOUNCES INTELLIGENT CACHING PLATFORM

Fremont, CALIF. — Versant Corporation, a leading provider of middleware infrastructure technology, announced the availability of Versant enJin, the industry’s first intelligent transaction caching platform, designed to accelerate the performance of Internet-based transactions. Versant enJin integrates seamlessly with all Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)- compliant application servers, including IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic. As the application server has become the platform of choice for new e-business applications, customers building performance-driven applications find accessing and updating the relational back-end database a performance bottleneck. Customers using Versant enJin within the application server environment can expect performance enhancements of up to fifty times while reducing development time by a minimum of 40%.

“We believe that the market for accelerating Internet transactions, which we have dubbed the ‘transaction accelerator market,’ will grow to more than $1 billion by the year 2004,” said Nick Ordon, President and CEO, Versant. “Much like the industry has recognized the need for intelligent content caching solutions, Versant is the first to recognize the increasing demands for intelligent caching on the transaction front, a market that we believe will ultimately overshadow content delivery.” The reason for the ‘transaction accelerator’ is simple. The application server was designed to handle complex Internet or e-business transactions, while the relational database was first designed 30 years ago to manage simple data sorted in rows and columns. By using Versant enJin with any application server, customers are able to remove that bottleneck while preserving the information assets stored in the back-end system. In addition, Java developers are able to eliminate time-consuming mapping code required to convert the data to the more traditional rows and columns. “The name of the game is speed in today’s Internet economy. We developed a patent-pending API to leverage Versant’s object technology to enable software vendors to quickly move their legacy applications to the Internet,” said David Doust, CEO of SoftwareMarkets, a new company that brings vertical small business applications to the Internet by connecting software vendors to Java experts. “By maintaining an object model natively within the application server environment, our software vendors can more quickly port their legacy applications and more easily customize them for their customers.”

ACTIVESTATE RELEASES ACTIVEPYTHON 2.0

Vancouver, BRITISH COLUMBIA — ActiveState, a leading provider of Internet programming software and services announces that ActivePython 2.0 is available for download. ActivePython is ActiveState’s free binary distribution of Python for the Linux, Solaris and Windows platforms. ActivePython enables programmers to get up and running faster with precompiled libraries, which run on all the popular operating systems, and with the numerous Windows-specific extensions by Mark Hammond, Senior Python Developer, ActiveState. “We’re delighted to bring the same high level of quality and reliability to the Python community that we have for Perl programmers,” said Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO, ActiveState. “We’re fully committed to increasing Python’s already fast growth rate with a host of user-friendly Python products and services such as ActivePython, Python for .NET, Visual Python, and PythonDirect.”

“I’m happy to see multiple sources of Python distributions and I’m glad to see that ActiveState is supporting and promoting Python. I hope that ActivePython will further contribute to Python’s accessibility, making it available to a whole new category of programmers,” said Guido van Rossum, creator of Python. ActivePython 2.0 Features: Cross-platform installer for Linux, Solaris, and Windows and integrated support for Windows APIs. “The Win32 extensions for Python helps us build scalable multi-threaded server applications,” said John Demelis, R&D Manager, 80-20 Software. “The PythonWin editor and debugger save us loads of time in the creation of our knowledge management software. “Python has always been easy to learn but it can be hard to find, compile and install extensions modules. Our release integrates extensions optimized for our target platforms of Linux, Solaris and Windows. For example we have built-in support for XML parsing, textual and graphical user interfaces, audio and more. On Windows, we ship with Mark Hammond’s famous extension that access the entire Windows API including COM, ASP, ODBC and MFC. The PythonWin development environment completes the package. ActivePython extends Python’s ‘batteries included’ philosophy,” said Paul Prescod, ActivePython 2.0 Project Lead.

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