New OEM Agreement Integrates Voltaire InfiniBand Interconnect with Preconfigured Altix 1350 Cluster Systems; Schlumberger Certifies Solution for Oil and Gas Exploration

BILLERICA, Mass. – February 1, 2005 – Voltaire, the leader in interconnect solutions for high performance grid computing, today announced that it has expanded its alliance with Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) to further integrate Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect into SGI® Altix® 1350 clustered systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect will serve as the high performance interconnect in preconfigured Altix 1350® clusters introduced today by SGI. (Note to editors: see related SGI announcement: SGI Brings Advantages of Altix to Mid-Range Clusters).

The combined solution is ideal for clustered applications that handle large data sets such as computer aided design, bioinformatics, chemistry, oil and gas exploration and databases. Customers of SGI and Voltaire exemplify some of the world’s most innovative High-Performance Computing use environments. They include NASA’s 20x512p, 10,240 total processor Columbia system, the University of Minnesota’s 8x16p cluster totaling 128 processors, and the Alabama Supercomputer Center’s five-node, 56-processor cluster. The new OEM relationship complements the existing Voltaire and SGI reseller agreement under which SGI Professional Services offers Voltaire multiprotocol switches, InfiniBand-to-IP and InfiniBand-to-Fibre Channel routers, adapters and software to enterprise and HPC customers seeking high performance Linux cluster solutions based on the SGI Altix platform.

“SGI and Voltaire have had a close and successful relationship for some time now to bring customers standards-based clustered solutions that deliver the utmost bandwidth and latency performance,” said Jeff Greenwald, senior director, Server Product Marketing and Management, SGI. “Building on that success, we are now more tightly integrating Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect with preconfigured Altix 1350 clusters to make it easier for our customers to deploy and benefit from high performance clusters.”

“This new OEM agreement is an important milestone in our partnership with SGI,” said Ronnie Kenneth, chairman and CEO, Voltaire. “We look forward to continuing to work with SGI to provide customers with a world-class cluster solution for complex and demanding applications.”

SGI Altix 1350: Scale Clusters at the Node

Announced separately today, the new SGI® Altix® 1350 cluster is based on the acclaimed SGI Altix 350 server. The new Altix 1350 is a factory-integrated cluster that matches superior Altix performance and functionality while reducing total cost of ownership. Altix 1350 cluster nodes scale up to 16 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors on a single instance of the Linux® OS. A new router adds the option to scale to 32 processors per node. By scaling at the node instead of adding new nodes every time computing needs increase, customers spend less on software licensing costs and interconnect fabric, with fewer nodes to connect, manage and provision.

For technical users seeking supercomputing-class capabilities in the industry’s most cost-effective, scalable platform, the Altix 350 system with Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect offers leading price/performance along with “expand on demand” flexibility in an industry-standard architecture. Altix 350 systems can scale up to 32 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors per node, providing superior performance and throughput for demanding HPC workloads.

Schlumberger Certifies SGI and Voltaire Solution for Leading Oil & Gas Application

The joint SGI - Voltaire solution also has been certified for Schlumberger ECLIPSE, the leading software solution for the oil and gas exploration industry. Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect delivers a performance boost to the reservoir simulation software in distributed computing environments.

The preconfigured Altix 1350 clusters with Voltaire InfiniBand interconnect are available today through SGI sales offices and SGI Solution Providers worldwide. Additional Altix system technical and availability information is posted on www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix/.

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