SuSE Linux and Silicon Graphics (SGI) have partnered to
bring together SGI's latest high-performance Altix 3000 servers and
SuSE's Enterprise Server 8 Linux operating system.
Both companies will work together on development to scale Linux
to 128 processors per node by sometime next year. Introduced last
January, the SGI Altix 3000 server family will be available with
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 starting in October.
SGI will provide first- and second-level support, with SuSE
offering third-level support.
Uwe Heine, chief alliance officer at SuSE, said the deal allows
SuSE to expand its presence in the high-performance computing
market. "
The Altix server family uses 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 processors
and is available in a wide range of configurations, including
supercomputing clusters. At present, each server can be configured
with four to 64 processors per node.
The new partnership will target business, technical and
scientific customers running large-scale databases and enterprise
infrastructure software, including bioinformatics and automotive
design and production.
"SuSE's support of advanced Linux features, such as scalability,
the XFS file system, security and native 64-bit environments
provide SGI and SuSE with a wealth of opportunities for
collaboration," said Dave Parry, vice president of SGI's server and
platform group.
Todd R Weiss writes for Computerworld