Dell has signed deals with customers in Europe for
high-performance computing clusters, including an agreement with
Oxford University, which is leading a four-institution research
consortium, as well as companies in the automotive, petroleum and
aerospace industries.
High-performance computing cluster, or HPCC, technology links
standards-based servers to create one powerful computer for
intensive computational work. Dell's deals include the
following:
- Oxford University has bought four 10-node clusters for particle
physics research as part of global Collider Detector Facility
(CDF) research being conducted through the Fermi National
Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. University College Cork in
Ireland also has recently bought 50 Dell PowerEdge 1655MC modular
servers which each have two processors and 1Gbyte of RAM for use at
the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics. Researchers there
will use the cluster, which also will be connected to
Grid-Ireland.
- Compagnie Generale de Geophysique, a supplier of services and
products to the global oil and gas industry, is expanding its HPCC
capacity at its Foxboro Centre in the UK and has deployed 512
PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux there to process data in
the search for new worldwide oil fields.
- MTU Aero Engines GmbH in Munich has added a 96-node Dell
cluster to existing HPCC wares. The new cluster was added to a
cluster of 64 PowerEdge servers installed in 2001. The company uses
the cluster to simulate jet engine aerodynamics, Dell said.
- Cray Italy has installed 16 clustered PowerEdge 2650 server at
Enel, an Italian electricity and energy company, for use in the
research department to run Fluent, a computational fluid dynamics
application that models plant components to make certain fuels are
being efficiently used and emissions are reduced, Dell said.
- Dell and Cray Germany will provide computing clusters to TRW
Automotive, and Fiat Research is also using several Dell clusters
running Linux in its operation in Italy, Dell said.
