Microway Announces Navion Clusters with AMD Six-Core Opteron™ Processors

More GigaFlops, Fewer Watts!

Kingston, MA – June 1, 2009 –

Microway announces its most powerful AMD Opteron™ processor-based platforms to date. The new Six-Core AMD Opteron Processor-based Navion™ Servers and InfiniBand Clusters include two and four socket Six-Core AMD Opteron processors, code-named “Istanbul.” Each server offers up to 256 GB memory and eight drives in Microway’s 1U and 4U RuggedRack™ chassis.

Navion 24 Core servers feature two complete SMP nodes with InfiniBand and Gigabit Ethernet packed into a robustly cooled 1U rack chassis. Each node features two Six-Core AMD Opteron processors, up to 64 GB DRAM and up to 2 hard drives. This packaging achieves a density of 960 cores in a standard 42U cabinet. Customers with compute-intensive applications including DSP, CFD and FEA, as well as high-performance database and enterprise-class applications choose Navion clusters for exceptional performance and power/space efficiency.

The new Six-Core AMD Opteron processors offer hardware innovations that tackle demanding workloads with superior overall efficiency. The Six-Core AMD Opteron processor is expected to deliver up to 30% more performance than the previous generation in the same power and thermal envelopes.*

The AMD-P technologies built into the AMD Opteron processors feature a variety of power optimization technologies including AMD PowerNow!™ technology, AMD CoolCore™ technology, and Dual Dynamic Power Management™. These innovative technologies can help reduce energy use and lower operational cost for today’s demanding data processing environments. Microway’s energy efficient designs employ 85+% efficient power supplies and other “GREEN” features.

WhisperStation™, Microway’s ultra-quiet workstation product line, also provides improved performance with one or two new Six-Core AMD Opteron processors and up to three AMD FireStream™ stream processors. All configurations have been “quietized” by employing noise-reducing technologies and are available running many flavors of Linux® or Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008.

“AMD and Microway have a long history of delivering innovative platform solutions to customers, and we are pleased to continue that with the new Six-Core AMD Opteron processor-based Navion servers and Infiniband clusters,” said John Fruehe, director, Business Development, Server and Workstation division, AMD (NYSE: AMD). “These new platforms offer superior performance-per-watt capabilities in compute intensive applications based on unique power saving technology, and offer value at every price point to help improve overall ROI so that customers make the most of their IT investments.”

“New HyperTransport™ 3.0 technology accelerates communications between processors. HyperTransport technology HT Assist also helps reduce unnecessary messaging between processors, thereby helping to improve CPU and memory communication speeds. Both contribute to high performance-per-watt and help customers save energy,” commented Stephen Fried, CTO of Microway. “Programs that we expect to dramatically benefit include floating point intensive computations like FFTs, which have high data re-use rates; SMP applications that make frequent calls, including transaction-based business applications; and programs that depend on byte code interpreters like JAVA to carry the work load.”

Microway’s Navion servers and WhisperStations are also available as multi-function SMP storage servers. Navion supports HPC/Enterprise applications, while providing up to 128 Terabytes of Storage in one single machine! A Microway Navion cluster will provide up to 960 processor cores, 2.5 TB memory and 240 TB storage in one well-cooled 42U cabinet. These machines are all fault tolerant, highly available with redundant power.

Microway’s HPC Clusters feature integrated advanced manageability features that have been refined over years of development and hundreds of real-world cluster deployments. Microway’s Cluster Management System (MCMS™) hardware/software solution featuring NodeWatch™ for remote cluster monitoring and control is available on Navion servers. Well known for its expertise in cooling, Microway’s achieved operating temperatures are consistently lower than industry guidelines. Both the 1U CoolFlow™ chassis and 4U RuggedRack™ feature proprietary Across-the-Board™ enhanced cooling. The RuggedRack includes front access hard disks and Hot-Swap power supplies. This allows the most common system failures to be serviced without powering off the server, or even removing the unit from a cabinet.

As an AMD Platinum Solution Provider, Microway incorporates the newest AMD processors, GPUs and high end graphics cards in its innovative product line, including HPC clusters, servers, WhisperStations and storage servers.

A complete product description can be found at https://www.microway.com/istanbul.html.

About Microway, Inc.

Incorporated in 1982, Microway is a major vendor in the High Performance Computing market, designing state-of-the-art, high-end Linux clusters, servers, and data storage solutions. Users worldwide pushing the limits of technology choose us for solutions. Microway is an AMD Platinum Partner, Novell Gold Partner and Microsoft Direct OEM for Windows Server HPC License. Classified as a small business, woman owned and operated, Microway’s GSA Contract Number is GS-35F-0431N. Trademarks include GigaCube, MCMS, MPI Link-Checker, Navion, NumberSmasher, NodeWatch, and Quadputer. For more information and a subscription to Microway’s online technical newsletter, please visit www.microway.com.

Microway, InfiniScope, MPI Link-Checker, Navion, NodeWatch, NumberSmasher, Quadputer, and WhisperStation are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microway, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, AMD Opteron, AMD CoolCore, AMD PowerNow!, Dual Dynamic Power Management, FireStream, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other jurisdictions.