“Penguin on Demand” Extends Cloud Computing

“Penguin on Demand” Extends Cloud Computing by
Making High-Density HPC Available as a Service

SAN FRANCISCO (Aug. 11, 2009) – Penguin Computing, experts
in high performance computing solutions, today announced the
immediate availability of “Penguin on Demand™”
– or POD – a new service that delivers, for the first
time, a complete high performance computing (HPC) solution in the
cloud. POD extends the concept of cloud computing by making
optimized compute resources designed specifically for HPC available
on demand. POD is targeted at researchers, scientists and engineers
who require surge capacity for time-critical analyses or
organizations that need HPC capabilities without the expense and
effort required to acquire HPC clusters.

“The most popular cloud infrastructures today, such as
Amazon EC2, are not optimized for the high performance parallel
computing often required in the research and simulation
sciences,” said Charles Wuischpard, CEO at Penguin Computing.
“POD delivers immediate access to high density HPC computing,
a resource that is difficult or impossible for many users to
utilize in a timely and cost-effective way. We believe POD will
promote new and faster innovation by enabling access to scalable
high performance computing to a much broader market.”

POD: A Complete HPC Solution in the Cloud

POD provides a computing infrastructure of highly optimized
Linux clusters with specialized hardware interconnects and software
configurations tuned specifically for HPC. Rather than utilizing
machine virtualization, as is typical in traditional cloud
computing, POD allows users to access a server’s full
resources at one time for maximum performance and I/O for massive
HPC workloads.

Comprising high-density Xeon-based compute nodes coupled with
high- speed storage, POD provides a persistent compute environment
that runs on a head node and executes directly on the compute
nodes’ physical cores. Both GigE and DDR high-performance
Infiniband network fabrics are available. POD customers also get
access to state-of-the-art GPU supercomputing with NVIDIA Tesla
processor technology. Jobs typically run over a localized network
topology to maximize inter-process communication, to maximize
bandwidth and minimize latency.

“We have been working with Penguin Computing on their POD
offering for several months, and we are very pleased with the
results,” said Dr. Natalia Trayanova, professor of biomedical
engineering at Johns Hopkins University and chief scientific
officer at CardioSolv, a company specializing in predictive cardiac
modeling and simulation. “We found significantly better
scaling when we switched from a traditional cloud solution to POD,
which is essential in enabling us to deliver relevant results in a
reasonable amount of time.”

Penguin Computing offers a full range of expert support and
services for POD customers, providing a complete HPC solution in
the cloud. Support is included for POD application set-up, creation
of the HPC computing environment, ongoing maintenance, data
exchange services and application tuning. In addition, POD includes
persistent storage for local data and user-defined compute
environments. Additional services are available through
Penguin’s Professional Services.

“Penguin Computing has been providing ready-to-run HPC
clusters, optimized software environments and professional services
for years. Penguin on Demand is an innovative way for our customers
to take advantage of our HPC expertise combined with
Penguin-designed HPC clusters to meet the real-time demands of
their business,” said Tom Coull, senior vice president and
general manager of Products and Engineering at Penguin
Computing.

For more information about Penguin on Demand (POD), please go to
www.penguincomputing.com/POD/Penguin_On_Demand .

About Penguin Computing

Penguin Computing, headquartered in San Francisco, California,
specializes in complete, integrated HPC clustering solutions.
Penguin has been a successful innovator for over a decade,
providing Linux HPC solutions to a variety of industries.
Penguin’s staff, including the originator of the Beowulf
Cluster architecture, has unsurpassed experience in delivering a
powerful combination of fully integrated HPC clusters,
comprehensive cluster management software, and services. For more
information about Penguin Computing and Penguin products, please go
to http://www.penguincomputing.com.