HP Unveils World’s Fastest Blade Solution for High-performance Computing

DRESDEN, Germany, June 26, 2006 -- HP today introduced the fastest blade system solution for high-performance computing, which will be on display at this week’s International Supercomputing Conference.

The HP BladeSystem c-Class enclosure features the world’s fastest midplane at 5 terabytes per second of aggregate throughput and the first midplane to support 4X DDR InfiniBand®, the industry’s fastest blade server interconnect, which delivers up to 20 gigabytes per second bandwidth in each direction.

Two members of the HP BladeSystem Solution Builder program, Mellanox and Voltaire, collaborated with HP to produce the interconnect solution.

The HPC BladeSystem c-Class also offers increased processor and node support, more efficient energy usage and increased cooling capabilities.

The c-Class offerings, introduced by HP on June 14, are supported in the HP Unified Cluster Portfolio, a comprehensive, modular package of hardware, software and services for high-performance computing (HPC). The portfolio’s HP Cluster Platform 3000BL and 4000BL will integrate the HP BladeSystem c-Class into HPC-optimized configurations, with a choice of factory-installed cluster software to enable rapid and easy deployment.

“Blade server adoption will continue to accelerate over the next several years, fueled by higher performance and greater flexibility at lower costs,” said Winston Prather, vice president and general manager, High Performance Computing Division, HP. “These blade server capabilities form the cornerstone of an adaptive infrastructure strategy that will provide high-performance computing customers substantial performance headroom to meet future compute demands.”

HP’s fully supported and highly scalable XC Cluster Software will be available for the HP BladeSystem c-Class server blades, as will a choice of cluster management products available through the open source community and HP partners. XC is a Linux-based production environment for HPC clusters that efficiently manages the most complex and critical high-performance computing workloads.

For the first quarter of 2006, research firm IDC reported that HP was the worldwide HPC revenue leader with more than 33 percent of overall market share. HP holds the lead in revenue share for technical computer systems priced at less than $250,000 with a 29 percent share, as well as the top position in the divisional market with 35 percent. HP also maintains a 57 percent revenue share for enterprise systems.(1)

Support for Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 for cluster platforms

HP reaffirmed its support of Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003, released by Microsoft earlier this month. With the addition of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 to HP’s Unified Cluster Portfolio, HP will offer customers HP-UX 11i, Windows and Linux to meet their HPC operating environment requirements.

The HP Message Passing Interface, a leading implementation of the MPI standard and critical for running and porting parallel applications, will be ported to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. In addition, HP and Microsoft are working with software vendors to port and optimize x86 processor-based, 64-bit applications to Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003.

More information about the HP BladeSystem c-Class and other high-performance computing solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/hpcbladespr.

Pricing and availability

The HP BladeSystem c-Class is expected to be available in the HP Cluster Platform 3000BL configuration in August. Support of the 4X DDR InfiniBand option is expected to be available in the HP Cluster Platform 3000BL and 4000BL configurations in the fall.

The HP BladeSystem c-Class portfolio supports dual-core processor technologies from Intel and AMD. The BladeSystem offers a broad choice of two- to four-processor server blades and forthcoming integrated storage blades, as well as support for Linux and Windows.

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is expected to be available on HP Cluster Platforms in the second half of the year.

About HP

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, 2006, HP revenue totaled $88.9 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.


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(1) IDC, Worldwide Technical Server Qview Q1 2006, May 26, 2006.


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