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Dallas,Texas — API NetWorks, Inc., a leading developer of high-performance, high-density technologies, today introduced the CS20, the world’s most powerful server in a 1U package and the company’s most advanced platform for computer clustering. The CS20 is the industry’s first rack-optimized, 1U, dual-processor Alpha server and gives the high-performance computing (HPC) and Internet community the ability to scale clusters into state-of-the-art supercomputer facilities, providing the most economic solution with the minimum computer room footprint.

“API NetWorks creates the building blocks for the world’s most powerful computing clusters, and our CS20 revolutionizes the cluster computing world,” said Gerry Talbot, president and CTO of API NetWorks. “Prior to its development, no one would have thought it possible to pack the computing power of a large supercomputer in such a dense package. Every aspect of the CS20 has been designed with the requirements of high-performance computing users in mind.”

The CS20 will be used to build advanced Web servers and render farms and as a cost-effective platform in creating clustered equivalents of supercomputers for large scale facilities, grand challenge problems and complex research.

“Our customers need supercomputing power to run the computationally intensive codes used to solve their real world problems, including increasing fuel efficiency in commercial aircraft by improving jet engine turbines, looking for extraterrestrial life, determining the structure of the organic molecules that go into pharmaceuticals, computing the path of weather systems and testing our country’s defense without firing a shot,” said Stephen Fried, president of Microway, Inc. “We use Alphas for our high-end computational engines because the platform offers the highest floating point performance and the fastest inter-processor connection speed. The CS20 has the highest floating point density of any general purpose product that has come to market in the history of computers.”

Key features and functionality of the CS20 include:

Fast “Over-the-Network” cluster deployment o “Network aware” Linux in the firmware boots directly at power on — minimizing start up and recovery times o Dual on-board Ethernet controllers, use of Disk and 2 PCI slots are optional — enabling simple, minimal deployment o Can exploit all available Linux drivers — enabling easy configuration of custom systems o Advanced remote management capabilities — greatly facilitating installation, re-configuration, management and monitoring

Most computing power in 1U form factor o 3.3 GFLOPS (billion floating point operations per second) — allowing advanced applications to run faster than ever before o Dual 833 MHz Alphas — no other 1U system in the world offers dual Alpha processor support

Optimized for building high performance clusters o Scales to 42 CS20s in each standard rack — creating “supercomputing” power and performance with minimum real estate o 140 GFLOPS of numerical computing power per standard rack — meaning a Teraflops scale facility can be housed in just 8 racks

“Performance and space efficiency are priorities for clustered system developers. This high-density rack mount server provides a solid building block for the creation of reliable high-performance, scalable and manageable Alpha Linux clusters in a small foot print,” said Bill Claybrook, research director, Linux and Open Source, at Aberdeen Group. “This cost-effective server solution is ideal for government, education and scientific communities, as well as for Internet solutions where hardware real estate is at a premium.”

The CS20 will be available in Q1 of 2001.

About API NetWorks, Inc. Addressing the demand for increased memory and I/O bandwidth, API NetWorks’ high-performance, high-density component and server technologies are ideal for today’s high-performance computing (HPC) and network infrastructure markets. API NetWorks’ industry-recognized design team is committed to working with leading companies to deliver the highest performing, scalable solutions available for OEMs, VARs and system integrators. For more information about API NetWorks and product offerings, see http://www.api-networks.com

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