Dolphin and Scali Utilize API NetWorks Technology to Introduce WulfKit for Alpha Linux, Enabling Supercomputer-like Performance at Low Price Points

Dolphin Interconnect Solutions and Scali are bringing WulfKit, their packaged cluster interconnect and software bundle, to Alpha Linux on API NetWorks motherboards, giving cluster builders a low-latency, supercomputer-style network for Alpha nodes without proprietary system pricing.

CONCORD, Mass. — August 14, 2000 — API NetWorks today announced that Dolphin Interconnect Solutions and Scali have used API NetWorks Alpha technology to introduce WulfKit for Alpha Linux. WulfKit combines Dolphin's PCI adapters for the Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI) with Scali's cluster software, including a high performance MPI implementation and cluster management tools. With support for API Alpha boards, customers can build tightly coupled Alpha Linux clusters whose communication performance approaches that of far more expensive proprietary parallel machines.

The interconnect problem

A cluster is only as good as the network between its nodes. Many scientific and engineering codes divide a problem across processors and then exchange boundary data at every step. On ordinary Ethernet of the time, each message could take tens of microseconds to leave one node and arrive at another, and the software stack consumed a noticeable share of processor time. For loosely coupled jobs that hardly mattered; for tightly coupled ones it limited how far a cluster could scale before adding nodes stopped helping.

SCI addresses that directly. Standardized as IEEE 1596, it is a point-to-point, packet-based interconnect that lets nodes read and write each other's memory with very low overhead. Dolphin's implementation plugs into a standard PCI slot and connects nodes in rings or two-dimensional torus topologies without a central switch, which keeps both cost and latency down. Scali's software turns that hardware into something applications can use through standard interfaces.

What is in WulfKit for Alpha Linux

• Dolphin PCI-SCI adapters for each node, with cabling for ring or 2D torus configurations.
• ScaMPI, Scali's MPI implementation tuned for SCI, giving applications low-latency message passing through the standard MPI interface.
• Cluster management software for installation, monitoring and control of nodes from a single point.
• Drivers and support for Linux on Alpha, validated on API NetWorks motherboards.

Combined with API boards such as the dual-processor UP2000, and processors such as the 21264A, the bundle gives a cluster integrator everything needed except the enclosures, memory and disks, all of which are commodity items.

Why the Alpha node matters

A fast network does not help if the node cannot use it. The Alpha 21264's strength in floating-point work and memory bandwidth means each node can actually generate and consume data at a rate that justifies a low-latency interconnect. That balance — strong nodes and a strong network — is what separates a cluster that behaves like a supercomputer from a pile of networked PCs. API's boards provide 64-bit PCI slots, so the SCI adapter is not bottlenecked by a narrow 32-bit bus, and the platform supports large memory configurations for problems that do not fit comfortably on 32-bit systems.

Customers kept asking for a cluster that could handle real parallel codes without a real supercomputer price. Pairing API's Alpha boards with SCI and a tuned MPI answers that question with standard parts.

An API NetWorks product manager

Target applications

1. Computational fluid dynamics and structural analysis in engineering.
2. Climate, weather and ocean modeling.
3. Quantum chemistry and molecular dynamics.
4. Seismic processing and reservoir simulation.
5. University teaching and research clusters for parallel programming.

Market context

By mid-2000 the Beowulf approach — building parallel computers from commodity nodes running Linux — was spreading well beyond the research groups that pioneered it. The name WulfKit is a nod to that movement. What held many potential buyers back was integration risk: choosing an interconnect, making drivers work, tuning MPI and managing dozens of nodes required expertise many labs did not have. A pre-tested kit reduces that risk, and supporting Alpha gives customers a higher performance node option alongside the x86 systems that WulfKit also targeted.

For API NetWorks, the announcement complements relationships with cluster integrators such as Linux NetworX and a growing list of technology partners. Each of these makes the Alpha board less of a component and more of a platform: something a customer can buy, together with proven software and networking, and put to work quickly.

Availability

WulfKit for Alpha Linux is offered through Dolphin, Scali and their resellers, and is intended to be combined with API NetWorks motherboards and processors purchased through API channels. Technical information on supported boards is available from API support.

About API NetWorks, Inc.

API NetWorks, Inc., formerly Alpha Processor, Inc., is headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 1998 as a joint effort of Samsung and Digital Equipment Corporation, later Compaq, to bring the 64-bit Alpha RISC architecture into mainstream markets. API designs and markets Alpha motherboards, processor modules, high-density rack servers and system-level building blocks for Linux and Tru64 UNIX, and supplies them to OEMs, system integrators and cluster builders worldwide. Through its API NetWorks unit the company is extending its high-performance design expertise into interconnect silicon and platforms for networking and communications equipment.