United Devices has unveiled a state-of-the-art facility -- the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Collaboration Center, or HPC3 -- that provides the technology and expertise necessary for companies to validate the business benefits of a collaborative HPC solution in an environment that emulates their real-world operations.

HPC3 is the first enterprise-class facility where customers can design, build, test and optimize a realistically complex HPC solution with significantly less time and effort than possible in their own environments. The facility provides the ability to dynamically configure a heterogeneous set of HPC hardware and software (including schedulers and applications) to be consistent with the legacy environment that is distributed geographically throughout their own organizations. At HPC3 clients can validate the business benefits of a collaborative HPC solution, where technologies and the individuals using them can effectively interoperate to share resources and knowledge. Only this type of collaborative solution can maximize innovation and significantly reduce the total cost of ownership of an organization's HPC investment.

"With traditional pilots it's impossible for companies to validate the business benefits of collaborative HPC -- because geographical, political, operational and technology challenges make it too difficult to sufficiently test a production implementation," said Ben Rouse, chief executive officer at United Devices. "HPC3 is the only facility of its kind that offers the heterogeneity customers need to replicate their real-world HPC environment in all its complexity, so they can rapidly quantify the benefits of their own collaborative HPC solution."

HPC3 offers access to an unparalleled range of heterogeneous resources, including configurable hardware from Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Sun; a wide variety of operating systems; software from various third-party Distributed Resource Managers (DRMs); third-party applications; and the collaborative HPC solution from United Devices. In addition, HPC3 provides access to the expertise, methodologies and best practices necessary to streamline solution design and implementation.

To enable customers to replicate globally distributed organizations, HPC3 includes a primary facility in Austin, Texas, as well as an additional, international facility in Paris. This allows customers to test realistic global integration scenarios like staging large data sets and enabling user transparency across globally distributed locales.

Client operating systems available at HPC3 include Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Solaris and AIX. The facility also supports heterogeneous 3rd party DRMs such as Platform LSF, Sun Grid Engine (SGE), Condor, Altair PBS, IBM LoadLeveler and United Devices Grid MP.

Third-party applications include products from the general business, life sciences, manufacturing and oil and gas sectors. HPC3 can also be used by customers and ISVs to expedite the process of Grid-enabling both research and business applications for any industry.

United Devices launched the center at a private reception last week widely attended by customers and industry leaders. HPC3 includes a fully equipped data center and conference rooms for formal presentations and informal planning.