SGI announced yesterday that they’re releasing a new product targeted at the life sciences market
SGI BioCluster, a powerful and accelerated workflow solution for pharmaceutical, life sciences and higher education researchers. The SGI BioCluster is an SGI Altix XE cluster system with PBS Pro cluster management tools and the eXludus Grid Optimizer, a new multi-core capacity management technology that substantially boosts throughput in clusters and grids running workloads with tens, hundreds or thousands of concurrent users through its unique real-time job schedule optimization technology.
SGI is building on a wave of recent announcements using its technology in this field, including this one covered here earlier this week.
The SGI BioCluster is available immediately through SGI and SGI value-added reseller channel. The system can be purchased with a 1, 2, or 3-year license, or as a 90-day trial version. The SGI BioCluster with the 64 Intel Xeon processors is the recommended configuration for high performance results. The system can also be configured with 16 or 32 processors. SGI customers who currently own an SGI Altix XE cluster system can purchase the eXludus Grid Optimizer with the same 1, 2, or 3 year license, or 90-day trial as well.
This vertical market solution customization is turning out to be a popular marketing strategy among HPC vendors as they jockey to grab chunks of the mid market HPC business that all the kids are talking about these days. Market-specific products allow customers in these new markets easy entry into the world of HPC. For example, LNXI has long had such a strategy with their application-tuned platforms targeted to specific markets like energy and aerospace.