NetworkWorldFusion: Linux supercomputer to be used for drug research

“Drug maker Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. has
commissioned the construction of a 112-processor, 110-gigaflop
Linux supercomputer cluster that will be used to accelerate drug
research and development.

In an announcement, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vertex said
the hardware is being provided by VA Linux Systems Inc. in Fremont,
California, and the project management, software deployment and
configuration are being provided by Boston-based Blackstone
Computing.

The cluster will initially use 56 computers, each running a pair
of Intel Corp. 933-MHz Pentium III processors, and will be
scaleable to up to 450 machines running as many as 900 processors.
The cluster will perform parallel computations using proprietary
software to conduct Vertex research into structural biology,
combinatorial chemistry, medicinal chemistry, bioinformatics and
pharmacology groups.”

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