Expanded Scalability on Standard Distribution Enables Support of Up to 512 Processors Under Single Linux Kernel

BOSTON, Mass. (February 14, 2005)—As the Linux community convenes in Boston this week at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo (February 14-17, 2005 at the Hynes Convention Center), Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) today announced that the latest version of its SGI ProPack™ software performance suite is now fully supported on SUSE® LINUX Enterprise Sever 9. SGI ProPack™ 4, available as an option for SUSE LINUX users, extends the popular, industry-standard Linux® distribution to help meet customer demand for solutions to high-performance computing, storage, and visualization problems. Novell and SGI expect to certify the software suite for SUSE LINUX shortly after release.

Also today, SGI announced that Novell's SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 now supports SGI® Altix® 3000 configurations of up to 512 processors under a single Linux kernel. The result of a collaborative development effort between Novell and SGI, the expanded scalability gives high-performance computing (HPC) environments more options than ever to tackle complicated problems with a proven, enterprise-grade, 64-bit Linux operating system. SGI will bundle SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 on SGI Altix 3000 servers and supercomputers, offering seamless scalability from two to 512 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors in a single system.

"Scaling to 512 processors on Linux was once thought impossible, but our work with SGI and a dedication to meet the needs of HPC customers have enabled us to accomplish significant technical advances," said Markus Rex, vice president and general manger for SUSE LINUX, Novell. "More and more, the world's most demanding users are realizing the benefits of Linux, and today's announcements further extend those advantages based on SGI ProPack software's long track record of maximizing application performance. We expect more users will now be able to make the most of their standard SUSE LINUX implementation."

SUSE LINUX and SGI ProPack: Scalability and Performance

Complex computing environments must perform 24x7 and adapt to ever-changing user demands, data privacy concerns, and system management goals. To address these challenges, SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9, built on the powerful Linux 2.6 kernel, include these features and benefits:

* Advanced I/O schedulers designed for quick application tuning and enhanced performance
* Support for the latest hardware and advanced network, storage and connectivity features for redundancy across peripherals and networks which enables high data availability
* Clustering for automatic fail-over also for high availability
* Rich user management, authentication and access control
* Support for encrypted file systems for added security
* An array of unique management features that make SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 the easiest Linux to deploy, configure and maintain across the enterprise

"Since introducing Altix in January of 2003, we've worked hard to push the scalability of Linux OS-based systems without sacrificing reliability and manageability," said Dave Parry, senior vice president and general manager, Server and Platform Group, SGI. "This latest development marks an important new chapter for open-source systems, with SUSE LINUX users able to pursue genuine supercomputer-class challenges while accessing the performance-enhancing features of SGI ProPack."

Featuring scientific libraries, NUMA tools, and other improvements, SGI ProPack 4 augments SUSE LINUX, allowing users to achieve application performance advantages similar to those obtained when running SGI Advanced Linux™ Environment with SGI ProPack™ 3. SGI ProPack for Linux is designed to run on the entire line of Altix® systems.

Availability

Available today, SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 is bundled with SGI Altix 3000 systems. For more information, visit www.sgi.com/products/servers/altix.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery™

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: SGI), is a leader in high-performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.