Feb. 27 — Today Xcelerit, a software company that specializes in cross platform acceleration tools for financial services, engineering, and scientific research, announces the availability of the Xcelerit SDK on High Performance Computing (HPC) instances from PEER 1. Existing applications can now undergo minor modifications to integrate the Xcelerit SDK and once converted, will run on a cloud-based supercomputer that can be assembled on demand with all the Xcelerit and supporting tools already pre-installed.

Since the beginning of 2010, PEER 1 have been offering cloud-based high-performance computers to users on-demand. With the click of a mouse, a user can request machines equipped with high-end CPUs and GPUs. This allows users to pay only for the resources they need without the need for upfront hardware investment.

Despite the awesome processing power that this facility offers, the problem of how to program it remains. Seasoned users of HPC systems have code that uses many different techniques to stitch the compute elements together. They might use MPI to bring clusters together, OpenMP to work between the cores within a CPU or resort to programming in CUDA or OpenCL to get the most out of their GPU hardware. Xcelerit simplifies all of this requiring only small modifications to be made to programs written in trading programming languages that allow them to run on any or all of these platforms. After re-factoring just the compute hot-spots within the code, the Xcelerit SDK takes care of the rest, figuring out what types of hardware are available and scheduling the computations to squeeze maximum performance out of each.

"Our SDK makes life easy for programmers who are domain focussed and don't want to become expert in different parallel programming techniques," commented Xcelerit's CEO Hicham Lahlou. "They can concentrate on their problems in finance, engineering or whatever and we will take care of the software performance", he said.

Xcelerit is a platinum member of the PEER 1 partner program which supports companies that make life easier for users of PEER 1 compute cloud. "We very much welcome Xcelerit's involvement in our programme," said Robert Miggins, Senior Vice President of Business Development at PEER 1. "We recognise that getting the most out of some of the exotic hardware we offer in our HPC cloud requires specialist tools and we're happy to help customers deploy the Xcelerit SDK as part of the overall solution".

To get the ball rolling, Xcelerit and PEER 1 are offering qualifying prospects a starter bundle that gives users access to a PEER 1 Private GPU node with the Xcelerit SDK and supporting tools already installed. Interested individuals can request access through the form http://www.xcelerit.com/request-trial/ and avail of the service for a minimal fee including an assessment of code porting by the Xcelerit team. "This offer makes it simple for people who think that they might need high-end CPUs or GPU compute capability to take the plunge", said Xcelerit's Lahlou. "Once they see the huge performance and ease of use they can get using our SDK and PEER1 HPC cloud, we are confident that they will never look back," he said.

About Xcelerit

Xcelerit is the leading software provider of cross-platform acceleration tools for financial services, engineering, and scientific research. The company's flagship product – Xcelerit SDK – allows domain specialists to unlock the performance of high-end processors (multi-core CPUs and GPUs) while preserving productivity. The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, visit http://www.xcelerit.com.

About PEER 1

PEER 1 Hosting is one of the world's leading IT hosting providers. The company is built on two obsessions: Ping & People. Ping, represents its commitment to best-in-breed technology, founded on a high performance 10Gb FastFiber Network connected by 18 state-of-the-art datacenters, 21 points-of-presence and 10 colocation facilities throughout North America and Europe. People, represents its commitment to delivering outstanding customer service to its more than 10,000 customers worldwide, backed by a 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support. Info-Tech Research Group recently named PEER 1 Hosting as a "Champion" in its Canadian colocation and managed services Vendor Landscape report, recognizing the company's strength in product offerings and enterprise strategy in the global IT marketplace. PEER 1 Hosting's portfolio includes Managed Hosting, Dedicated Servers under the ServerBeach brand, Colocation and Cloud Services through Zunicore. Founded in 1999, the company is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with European operations headquartered in Southampton, UK. PEER 1 Hosting shares are traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX. For more information, visit www.peer1hosting.co.uk.

-----

Source: Xcelerit