November 9, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Visual Numerics'® IMSL® Fortran Library now
Available for the
Cray XD1™ Supercomputer
San Ramon, CA - November 9, 2004 - Visual Numerics Inc., a leading provider of numerical analysis
and visualization software, today announced the availability of Visual Numerics' IMSL Fortran
Numerical Library 5.0 for the Cray XD1 supercomputer. As part of the two companies' longstanding
relationship, Visual Numerics' mathematical and statistical library will be available on the Cray
XD1, an AMD Opteron/Linux system designed to meet the needs of the broad High Performance Computing
(HPC) user community.
With the IMSL Fortran Library, Visual Numerics offers the broadest array of mathematical and
statistical algorithms in a single package along with a wide range of platform support. The
combination of the IMSL Fortran Library with the Cray XD1 provides customers in industry, government
and academia with tools that enable the development of large-scale analytical applications that
require a high-performance environment, and enables users to move those applications from a lower-end
development system to the Cray XD1 without significant changes to application code.
"Cray's 20-year relationship with Visual Numerics has helped meet our customers' needs for
superior HPC solutions with powerful, easy-to-use programming environments," said Peter Ungaro,
Cray senior vice president of sales, marketing and services. "Visual Numerics' high performance
IMSL Library will play a key role in exploiting the revolutionary power of the affordable new Cray
XD1 Opteron/Linux-based supercomputer."
"Our IMSL Fortran Library has been available on Cray supercomputers since the inaugural Cray
system - the CRAY 1," said Phil Fraher, COO of Visual Numerics. "Cray is the recognized leader
when it comes to supercomputing, and the availability of our IMSL Fortran Library on the Cray
XD1 further validates Visual Numerics' leadership in the high-performance computing industry.
We are pleased to continue our relationship and bring this powerful high-performance analytics
solution to the market."
About the Cray XD1 Supercomputer
The Cray XD1 features the direct connect processor (DCP) architecture, which removes PCI
bottlenecks and memory contention to deliver superior sustained performance. According to the
HPC Challenge benchmarks, the Cray XD1 has the lowest latency of any HPC system, with MPI latency
of 1.8 microseconds and random ring latency of 1.3 microseconds. Tests conducted by the Ohio
Supercomputer Center show that the Cray XD1 ships messages with four times lower MPI latency than
common cluster interconnects such as Infiniband, and 30 times lower than Gigabit Ethernet employed
in lowest-cost clusters. The Cray XD1's interconnect delivers twice the bandwidth of 4X Infiniband
for messages up to 1 KB and 60 percent higher throughput for very large messages.
About the IMSL Numerical Libraries
The IMSL Numerical Libraries have been the cornerstone of highly predictive and deep computing
applications in science, technical and business environments for nearly three decades. These
embeddable mathematical and statistical algorithms, written in C, C#, Java and Fortran, are used
in a broad range of applications -- from programs that make airplanes fly and allow people to
predict the weather, to those that enable innovative ways to study the human genome and predict
stock market behavior. The IMSL Libraries are regarded as the most sophisticated, flexible, scalable
and highly accessible technology available for numerical analysis in the most important mainstream
programming environments in use today. With the strength of its IMSL Numerical Libraries and
expertise in its Professional Services group, more and more organizations are turning to Visual
Numerics for leading-edge business analytics solutions.
Availability
Evaluation versions of the IMSL Fortran Library are now available through Visual Numerics. For
more information, please visit http://www.vni.com/products/imsl/index.html .
About Visual Numerics
Visual Numerics has provided technical software solutions for numerical analysis and visualization
for more
than three decades. The company's software products help users understand complex data from a variety
of sources
and build business-critical applications. Visual Numerics offers two product lines: the IMSL Numerical
Libraries
for powerful mathematical and statistical analysis and the PV-WAVE® visual data analysis
development environment.
Visual Numerics also offers customized consulting services for applications that involve mathematical,
statistical, or visual data analysis to meet today's business analytical needs.
Major corporations, academic institutions, and research laboratories worldwide use Visual Numerics' software
tools, including such high profile companies as: Bear, Stearns & Company; Barclays Global Investors;
Priceline.com; The Dow Chemical Company; Humana, Sandia National Laboratories; and Boeing Company. This large
and diverse customer base is supported through a direct sales force, wholly owned international subsidiaries,
and international distributors. For more information about Visual Numerics, please visit
www.visualnumerics.com.
Trademark Statement:
Visual Numerics and PV-WAVE are registered trademarks of Visual Numerics, Inc. in the U.S. and
other countries. IMSL, JMSL, JWAVE, TS-WAVE and Knowledge in Motion are trademarks of Visual
Numerics, Inc. All other company, product or brand names are the property of their respective
owners.
