InsideTrack: Sun may be winning some business in a shakeup down under

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A source close to insideHPC has given us a glimpse into some of what is going on in HPC in Australia with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology HPC acquisition. The acquisition covers several existing installations, with incumbents NEC and SGI. The acquisition calls for a machine each at APAC and CSIRO, with a hot spare at the BOM. APAC researchers seem to prefer a cluster and NOT a vector based system as their primary machine, whereas BOM/CSIRO are happy with a vector system.

Word from the InsideTrack initially was that IBM has a good shot since they often follow the UK Met organization, which recently went IBM. However the picture was unclear, as APAC evidently aren’t keen on IBM. It now appears that IBM has been ruled out, as has Cray. HP didn’t bid.

Which leaves NEC, SGI, and…. In fact the InsideTrack has been told that the announcement of the winner is delayed due to extended negotiations with Sun. We’ll definitely keep our eye on this one.