Altair Announces Interoperability of PBS Professional with Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server
Solution provides integrated workload management across Windows and UNIX environments
TROY, Mich., November 09, 2007 – Altair, a leading global provider of technology and services that empower client innovation and decision-making, today announced the seamless integration of Altair’s PBS Professional workload management solution and Microsoft’s Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (CCS), a high-performance computing (HPC) platform for Windows. PBS Professional is part of Altair’s PBS GridWorks suite of on-demand computing solutions. Altair and Microsoft will demonstrate a prototype of this interoperability at the international SuperComputing 2007 (SC07) conference, the largest annual event in the HPC community. Additionally, both companies plan to productize and release new versions of their software that incorporate this interoperability functionality during 2008. At SC07, Altair and Microsoft will also highlight the market success of Altair’s RADIOSS software, a leading finite-element solver for crash analysis, which was released on the Windows CCS platform earlier in the year.
This interoperability project is based on both companies commitment to support the Open Grid Forum’s HPC Basic Profile. The HPC Basic Profile specification is a proposed recommendation from the Open Grid Forum (OGF) to enable interoperability for job submission and job management between disparate workload management solutions. The planned integration between PBS Professional and CCS allows mutual customers to federate their Windows-, Linux- and UNIX- based servers into a virtual resource pool and then share these resources across all enterprise users through a common and consistent process for submission, monitoring and execution of their computational workloads.
“Altair is committed to the OGF HPC Basic Profile specification and is pleased to have established this integration relationship with Microsoft,” said Michael Humphrey, vice president of Partner Programs, Altair. “Many of our customers have asked Altair to help them integrate their mixed environments and reduce barriers associated with separate computing silos. This collaboration promises to provide more flexibility, lower IT costs and increased systems utilization to our HPC customers.”
“By providing HPC workload management for mixed clusters of Linux and Windows, Altair’s PBS Professional enables greater customer flexibility and productivity,” said Shawn Hansen, Director of HPC Marketing, Microsoft Corporation. “The interoperability between CCS and PBS Professional will enable HPC customers to seamlessly add Windows Compute Cluster Server to existing clusters and make HPC resources readily available to their Windows users. We are excited to build on the momentum and customer traction that we have already seen with the integration of RADIOSS and Windows clusters.”
About Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 brings together the power of commodity x64 (64-bit x86) computers, the ease of use and security of Active Directory directory service and the Windows operating system to provide a security-enhanced and affordable HPC solution. In addition, the CCS HPC platform is simple to deploy, operate and integrate with existing infrastructure and tools.
About PBS GridWorks
Altair PBS GridWorks provides a suite of on-demand, policy-based grid computing technologies that allows enterprise clients to maximize their ROI on computing infrastructure assets. As an industry leader in both commercial and open-source workload management solutions, PBS GridWorks is the most widely implemented software environment for grid-, cluster- and on-demand computing worldwide. The suite’s flagship product, PBS Professional, provides a flexible, on-demand computing environment that allows enterprises to easily share diverse (heterogeneous) computing resources across geographic boundaries. PBS GridWorks solutions are deployed within a number of industries, including manufacturing, government, academia, life sciences, energy, digital media and finance. For more information please visit www.pbsgridworks.com.
About Altair
Altair Engineering, Inc. empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held with more than 1,400 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 20-year-plus track record for product design, advanced engineering software and grid computing technologies, Altair consistently delivers a competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.