MIDDLEWARE

Digipede Technologies the leading provider of distributed computing solutions for the Microsoft Windows platform, today introduced the Digipede Network Professional Edition for large departments and organizations. The Digipede Network pools the power of Windows desktops and servers to deliver dramatically improved performance for real-world business applications. The solution is built entirely on Microsoft .NET technologies, making it easier to buy, install, learn, and use than competing grid solutions. “We’ve been excited and gratified by the response we’ve received in the market since we released the Digipede Network Team Edition in June,” said John Powers, CEO of Digipede. “Our customers tell us we’re on the right track – that by dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of distributed computing, we’re opening up new opportunities for them to improve application performance.” Powers continues, “Today, with the release of the Digipede Network Professional Edition, we’re adding a new level of scalability and performance for larger departments and organizations. The Digipede Network Professional Edition retains the simplicity of the Team Edition, while supporting an unlimited number of agents, resource pools, and users.” Many diverse applications can benefit from increased scalability and performance through distributed computing. Using the recently released Digipede Framework SDK, software developers can grid-enable their applications, so scientists, analysts, engineers, project managers and many others with compute-intensive needs can benefit from the improved performance of a distributed application. Developers can use the Digipede Framework SDK directly from the tools Microsoft developers know best, including Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005. “Digipede solutions help IT buyers virtualize their Microsoft Windows environments -- making it possible to pool server resources to optimize resource utilization, lower management costs, and tackle complex computing workloads,” said Joe Clabby, VP of Systems and Storage at Summit Strategies. “Digipede’s Team Edition makes it possible for enterprises to build virtualized computing grids at a very attractive price point -- and its new Network Professional Edition enables enterprises to scale into larger grid configurations easily and cost effectively." According to Gartner analyst Carl Claunch, "Adoption of grid is steadily increasing, particularly in industry segments such as finance and life sciences, as grid unlocks business value not feasible with traditional computing approaches.” The Digipede Network Professional Edition is part of Digipede’s continuing drive to bring the benefits of grid computing into the mainstream market. Powers continues, “The Team Edition allows organizations to discover the value of grid computing at a very attractive price point, and Professional Edition offers a smooth upgrade path once that value is established.” Glen Boyer, IT Manager of Pacific Event Productions adds, “As a mid-sized company organizing many thousands of events per year, we needed a distributed computing solution to scale out a compute-intensive reporting process running on our Web site. We did not have the resources -- hardware, staff, time and budget -- that some Fortune 500 companies have, so we were definitely priced out of the distributed computing market, until we learned about Digipede. Once we discovered how easy it was to deploy the Digipede Network, we were able to scale out our application in just a few days using existing hardware, without having to hire expensive consultants or learn complex new programming techniques.” Boyer continues, “With the Digipede Network we’ve been able to handle ten times the load on our Web application with no decrease in quality of service to our users. After deploying the Digipede Network, we were able to support far more simultaneous users without delays. And we saved about $100,000 in hardware and software licensing costs when compared to alternate solutions.” Digipede Technologies is the first to deliver a commercial distributed computing software solution built entirely on the Microsoft .NET Framework. The Digipede Network is a powerful software tool that parcels out the most complex computing jobs within a department, or across an entire enterprise network, by dynamically allocating the computing power of both dedicated and idle resources. The Digipede Network dramatically improves the speed and scalability of many types of real-world business applications. Because the Digipede Network is easy to deploy and use, customers can focus on solving their key business and research problems rather than wasting time developing a distributed computing infrastructure. The Digipede Network is available in two editions: the Digipede Network Team Edition meets the needs of small departments and labs that may only have up to 20 computers, while the Digipede Network Professional Edition supports large departments and enterprises with hundreds or thousands of desktops, servers, and cluster nodes across a network. Both Editions include the Digipede Workbench, which is designed to shorten the learning curve so that users can become productive immediately. Through a familiar Windows user interface, users can run distributed computing jobs with ease. Wizards assist users with learning and using the system quickly, and powerful designers provide access to greater system functionality. No complex scripting is required. Availability and Pricing The Digipede Network Professional Edition is available now directly from Digipede Technologies. The Digipede Network Professional Edition starts at $4,000 for a system licensing one Digipede Server and five Digipede Agents; additional Agents can be licensed for $199 each. Current customers of the Digipede Network Team Edition can upgrade to the Professional Edition at a discount; contact email protected from spam bots for details. The Digipede Network Professional Edition includes the Digipede Framework SDK at no additional charge. For additional information about pricing and configuration options, visit Digipede’s online store at its Web site, or contact Digipede at email protected from spam bots.