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New release leverages power of Intel’s Nehalem-EX and Westmere-EP processors for unlimited modular scale of virtual SMP systems

ScaleMP today announced a new version of its award-winning server virtualization for aggregation software platform, vSMP Foundation 3.0. The new release offers unlimited modular scaling, increased performance with scalable backplane bandwidth and expanded hardware support. vSMP Foundation 3.0 leverages the power of Intel’s Nehalem-EX and Westmere-EP processors for the creation of virtual symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems from two to 128 nodes, enabling users to create the largest x86 shared-memory system available on the market. 

“The further extension of vSMP Foundation at the high end has dramatic value to customers running high performance clusters or low-end SMP as well. ScaleMP continues to broaden support for its Direct Connect 2 capabilities to allow our customers to scale smaller dual-socket systems to four or eight-sockets without the hardware forklift upgrade they would otherwise face,” said Jeff Fettig, VP of sales and marketing for JRTI, a long-time VAR partner and distributor of vSMP Foundation. “In addition we’ve seen an uptick in interested high performance cluster customers looking for an easier way to manage cluster configurations. vSMP Foundation provides them the answer.”

vSMP Foundation 3.0 offers:

·         Unlimited modular scale – raising the upper limits of vSMP Foundation to address larger workloads by creating virtual SMPs with 128 server systems, where each can have up to 128 CPUs (core or threads) totaling 16,384 CPUs. In addition, the new release supports maximum memory and expands to support VMs with up to 64 TB of RAM.

·         Increased performance with improved backplane bandwidth – adding to the existing fault tolerant capabilities and allowing failover of the networking interconnect from one InfiniBand connection to another, vSMP Foundation 3.0 enables use of multiple InfiniBand host channel adaptors (HCAs) in parallel and uses advanced algorithms to balance the traffic between the parallel InfiniBand connections. The use of InfiniBand multi-path networking included with this release improves overall system performance and is recommended for deployments that have a high number of cores.

·         Expanded hardware support – supporting the latest Intel processors, Nehalem-EX and Westmere-EP, vSMP Foundation now offers an increased set of server options to build virtual SMPs. In addition, an expanded set of host bus adaptors (HBAs) from LSI and Emulex, as well as support for Broadcom’s 10-Gigabit Ethernet cards for customers provide the ability for users to connect a virtual SMP with an extended set of peripheral devices, including a 10GbE network. 

“We are focused on expanding support for the most cutting-edge hardware and networking technologies available so that our customers can optimize their resource utilization, simplify system and cluster management and achieve the highest virtual SMP performance possible,” said Shai Fultheim, founder and CTO of ScaleMP. “vSMP Foundation now allows users to use a Nehalem-EX system to build larger VMs – with up to 128 nodes and support for an increased number of peripheral devices. The expanded feature set insures that customers with very large workloads have the flexibility to create the type of systems they need without having to invest in a costly proprietary option. vSMP Foundation is, from both a cost and  performance perspective, the best option in the market today.”

Availability

vSMP Foundation 3.0 is available now in limited distribution. General availability of vSMP Foundation 3.0 is expected on June 14, 2010. For more information about vSMP Foundation, please visit www.scalemp.com/architecture.