Platform Computing Launches Platform Rocks for Linux Cluster Market

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 8 -- SUPERCOMPUTING 2004 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Platform Computing Inc. today announced a powerful new software solution called Platform Rocks, a comprehensive cluster management toolkit that simplifies and speeds the deployment and management of small to large scale Linux clusters. Ultimately, better Linux cluster management results in lower total cost of ownership, faster scale-out to large clusters, and reduced business risk.

Platform is working with the Dell High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) program to offer Platform Rocks first to Dell customers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Platform Rocks is available free of charge. Customers have the option to purchase Annual Cluster Care, a package of value added services that includes 24/7 commercial support and upgrades.

Based on NPACI (National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure) Rocks developed by the San Diego Supercomputing Center, Platform Rocks is a hybrid software stack featuring a blend of market-leading open source software technologies and proprietary products. Platform Rocks meets the needs of a rapidly growing category of Linux users who previously cobbled together their own Linux cluster management solutions. Linux and the open source software movement have accelerated the decoupling of various cluster components through the flexibility of an open software solution stack. However, increased choice and flexibility can be expensive and risky for users who need to deploy and manage components. Platform Rocks addresses this issue by providing a pre-engineered, tested standard framework and set of tools, in addition to integrating industry-leading technologies from companies like Red Hat, Topspin Communications and Intel.

"As our customers in various verticals such as government and financial services continue to move to Linux-based computing infrastructures, they require a cost-effective Linux cluster management solution," said Songnian Zhou, CEO, Platform Computing. "Platform Rocks reduces the complexity of managing Linux clusters and therefore reduces total cost of ownership and business risk."

"Platform Rocks will be an important offering within our HPCC configurations," said Reza Rooholamini, director of high-performance cluster computing and enterprise solutions engineering in Dell's Product Group. "As Linux clusters grow in size and scale, management is mission-critical. Platform Rocks promises to help customers more effectively manage high performance computing clusters to deliver improved computing performance and productivity." Broad Industry Support for Platform Rocks

"As Linux becomes the dominant operating system in the cluster environment, and as companies move from clusters to full scale grids, it is imperative that organizations look to Linux cluster management solutions to help manage commodity Linux clusters," said Nick Gall, Principal Analyst, META Group.

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux powers some of the world's most compute- intensive High Performance Computing Clusters," said Joanne Rohde, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations, Red Hat. "Through Dell's HPCC program, customers who need cluster-specific management capabilities now have an innovative solution with Platform Rocks that can be used with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Network. This is a great example of how market leaders like Platform are using open source innovation to drive standards and serve the expanding scale-out market."

"Platform ROCKS is fully supported by Intel(R) Software Development Tools, including the recently announced Intel MPI Library v1.0 for Linux. This integrated support will allow application developers to easily deploy applications across an enterprise cluster, while providing seamless adoption of Intel MPI 1.0. This is a great leap forward in decreasing the TCO associated with deployments of clusters," said Richard Wirt, General Manager, Intel Senior Fellow, Software Solutions Group.

"We look forward to the contributions that Platform and their partners will make to the open source community at large and especially to the education market. This adds value to the National Science Foundation's funding investment in the Rocks core development at UCSD and should positively impact the science and engineering research community," said Philip Papadopoulos, Ph.D., Program Director, Grid and Cluster Computing, San Diego Supercomputer Center, UCSD. Pricing and Availability

Platform Rocks is available free of charge at http://www.platform.com/rocks. Customers must register at http://www.platform.com/rocks to receive documentation and product details. Customers have the option to purchase Annual Cluster Care, a package of value added services including expert 24/7 support, periodic upgrades and patches. Annual Cluster Care is priced on a per node basis.

For more information on Platform Rocks, please visit Platform's SC2004 online media kit at http://www.platform.com/newsevents/presskits/sc2004.asp. About Platform Computing

Platform Computing provides distributed and grid computing solutions that help enterprises accelerate key business applications, reduce operational and capital costs, guarantee service levels and optimize their IT resources. Platform's integrated desktop to enterprise grid software solutions are used by over 1,600 customers worldwide in the financial services, government, industrial manufacturing, electronics and life science industries to deliver higher quality products and services, improve business performance and maximize the return on it investments. Founded in 1992, platform has strategic relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Apple, SAS and SGI, and the Industry's broadest application integration support. For more information visit http://www.platform.com.