SAN JOSE, Calif.-- ClusterWorld Conference & Expo, the world's premier event on clustered solutions in commercial, research and academic computing, today announced that 2,163 attendees gathered at the San Jose Convention Center last week to learn about the latest trends and innovations in clustering technology. Lead sponsors HP, IBM, Intel and Sun Microsystems were joined by 41 other industry exhibitors offering attendees hands-on demonstrations of breakthrough clustering products and services.

With keynote speeches, panel sessions and presentations by the world's leading experts in clustering, the tradeshow and conference was the first-ever summit to draw exhibitors, customers and attendees from all aspects of the industry, including HA, HPC, GRID and parallel and distributed computing.

The week kicked off with the Top500 announcement of the world's most powerful computer systems. Intel architecture-based clustered systems comprised 119 of the list total, more than double six months ago. More than 37 percent of the supercomputer clusters performing at a TeraFlop and above ran on the Linux operating system. A cluster of Linux systems built by Linux Networx at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory jumped to number three in the supercomputer rankings. It was a timely testament to the power of clustered products and services featured at the ClusterWorld Conference and Expo.

"The success of our first show demonstrates the strength and vitality of the clustering industry," said Adam Goodman, CEO of QuarterPower Media, publisher of Linux Magazine and producer of ClusterWorld Conference & Expo. "The large turnout, the quality of the exhibits and the extraordinary caliber of industry experts who came to share their insights give us a solid foundation for staging the next ClusterWorld Conference and Expo."

Exhibitors announced new products, services and major customer wins. Following are some highlights:

-- California Digital announced a forthcoming Intel Itanium 2-based system
-- Dell announced a new Intel Itanium 2-based system
-- HP announced the National Center for Supercomputing Applications had selected its high-performance Linux cluster systems
-- IBM previewed the upcoming IBM eServer based on the AMD Opteron(TM)-based systems and the opening of its first facility for delivering on-demand supercomputing power to customers over the Internet
-- Infinicon Systems and Appro demonstrated the first integrated AMD and Intel HPC clustering solution with 10Gbps interconnect
-- RackSaver and Microsoft announced new high performance computing solutions
-- RLX Technologies and Topspin Communications announced an InfiniBand partnership
-- Sistina and Steeleye announced an HA technology partnership -- Sun Microsystems and MSC.Software announced a GRID partnership
-- SuSE announced it was selected by Cray as the Linux operating system in a new Department of Energy supercomputer cluster
-- Voltaire announced a new iSCSI and InfiniBand connectivity solution

Exhibitors enjoyed a unique setting to demonstrate solutions and meet with highly qualified customers.

"This year's ClusterWorld was a tremendous success," said Dave Turek, vice president, IBM Deep Computing. "As the show moves into its second year it should quickly become the standard for highlighting cutting edge clustering technologies. We are honored to receive the 32-Bit Turnkey Solution Technology Excellence Award for our Linux-based IBM eServer Cluster 1350. This well integrated platform brings together IBM eServer xSeries systems with our deep knowledge of system management software such as SMC and Director. "

"ClusterWorld offered a unique opportunity for technologists and users in commercial sites, scientific research and IT to come together and share experiences with clustering while seeing the latest technologies first-hand," said Martin Fink, vice president of Linux, HP. "HP was pleased with the turnout, participation by HP customers BP and Daimler Chrysler as featured speakers, and the opportunity to showcase HP's own comprehensive clustering solutions."

"This show provided an excellent forum to showcase AMD's successes and partnerships in the cluster computing market," said Ben Williams, director of AMD's Server/Workstation Business Segment. "The AMD Opteron processor attracted a tremendous amount of attention and even won "Best in Show" for its incredible performance in both 64 and 32-bit cluster environments."

There were scores of case study presentations at the conference with more than 60 expert speakers, from national laboratories and universities to Celera, DaimlerChrysler and Shell.

In the opening keynote, John Picklo, manager of HPC for DaimlerChrysler, said cost considerations drove the move to clustered commodity systems and away from traditional supercomputers, saving his budget 40 percent while boosting performance by 20 percent. Shell's Jacobus Buur, principal research physicist at Shell International Exploration and Production in the Netherlands, predicted in his second-day keynote that a global grid would create a new market for compute resources. IBM's Tilak Agerwala, vice president of systems at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, called clusters a "disruptive technology" that would redefine real-time business intelligence information. Keynote speaker John Reynders, vice president of Informatics at Celera Therapeutics, discussed how clusters accelerate time to market for new drugs.

One of the show highlights came on the second day when Pete Beckman, lead engineer of the TeraGrid project, moderated the first ClusterWorld Challenge, a trivia game pitting leading experts against each other in teams of four on their knowledge of cluster history. The winning team prevailed on the last question. The team included clustering legends Donald Becker of Beowulf fame, Greg Lindahl, co-founder of Key Research, Jose Maria of IBM and Dan Weber of the Center for Analytical Prediction of Storms (CAPS).

The show closed with the announcement of the winners of Excellence in Clustering Technology Awards. The winners were AMD for Best of Show, Linux Networx for Cluster Management/Monitoring Solutions, Topspin Communications for Interconnects, Sun Microsystems for GRID Solutions, Data Direct Networks for Storage Solutions, Intel for Developer Tools, SuSE for Software Stack/Distribution, IBM for 32-Bit Turnkey Solution, and Microway for 64-Bit Turnkey Solution with honorable mentions in this category also going to Aspen Systems and Racksaver.

The next ClusterWorld Conference and Expo takes place April 5 - 8, 2004 at the San Jose Convention Center.