Dell signs European cluster customers

BOSTON -- Dell Computer has signed deals with customers in Europe for high-performance computing clusters, including a pact with Oxford University, which is leading a four-institution research consortium, as well as companies in the automotive, petroleum and aerospace industries.

High-performance computing cluster, or HPCC, technology links standards-based servers to create one powerful computer for intensive computational work. The agreements announced Tuesday by Dell include:

-- Oxford University has bought four 10-node clusters for particle physics research as part of global Collider Detector Facility (CDF) research being conducted through the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago. University CollegeCork in Ireland also has recently bought 50 Dell PowerEdge 1655MC modular servers which each have two processors and 1G byte of RAM for use at the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics. Researchers there will use the cluster, which also will be connected to Grid-Ireland.

-- CompagnieGenerale de Geophysique, a supplier of services and products to the global oil and gas industry, is expanding its HPCC capacity at its Foxboro Centre in the U.K. and has deployed 512 PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux there to process data in the search for new worldwide oil fields.

-- MTU Aero Engines in Munich has added a 96-node Dell cluster to existing HPCC wares. The new cluster was added to a cluster of 64 PowerEdge servers installed in 2001. The company uses the cluster to simulate jet engine aerodynamics, Dell said.

-- Cray Italy has installed 16 clustered PowerEdge 2650 server at EnelSpA, an Italian electricity and energy company, for use in the research department to run Fluent, a computational fluid dynamics application that models plant components to make certain fuels are being efficiently used and emissions are reduced, Dell said.

-- Dell and Cray Germany will provide computing clusters to TRW Automotive, and Fiat Research is also using several Dell clusters running Linux in its operation in Italy, Dell said.