URBANA, Ill. (November 1, 2006)—Over 100 scientists, developers, and engineers from more than 30 companies and institutions convened from all around the globe for the October 2006 Gelato ICE: Itanium(r) Conference & Expo held in Singapore. The event was organized by the Gelato Federation (http://www.gelato.org), an international user community dedicated to advancing Linux(r) on the Intel(r) Itanium(r) architecture. The conference was hosted by the Bioinformatics Institute (BII), Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), and National Grid Office (NGO). Conference sponsors included HP, Intel, and the Itanium(r) Solutions Alliance, and media sponsors included HPCwire and GRIDtoday.

"NGO was very proud to partner the A*STAR research institutes in hosting Gelato ICE and to help provide a conducive environment for attendees to learn more about Linux on Itanium-based platforms," stated Hing-Yan Lee, deputy director of NGO. "As a user of this platform ourselves, we recognize the great asset that the Linux on Itanium architecture provides for high-end grid computing and high-performance computing in general."

Presentations and Cutting-Edge Projects Showcased

A major goal of the Gelato Federation is education, an area in which the October 2006 Gelato ICE excelled. Focused on areas such as virtualization, multi-core programming, grid, scalability, research, and techniques for software developers, the event delivered an exceptional speaker line-up and technical program with nearly 40 presentations. Highlights were the keynote speeches given by Steve Geary (HP), Cameron McNairy (Intel), and Jeff Adie (SGI and the Itanium Solutions Alliance), and a ceremony for the inaugural Gelato Innovative Projects for Itanium Processors (IP)2 Award, given to Peter Chubb of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) for his team's work on large memory pages (superpages).

A new program track on multi-core programming was voted a favorite by attendees as was a track targeting software developers sponsored by the Itanium Solutions Alliance. Notable in this track were: "An Update on the Perfmon2 Interface" by Stéphane Eranian (HP); "64-Bit Migration to Linux on Itanium: Challenges, Advantages, and Tools" by Soumitra Chatterjee (HP); and "Hyper-Threading on Dual-Core Intel Itanium 2 Processors" by Cameron McNairy (Intel).

Presentations from the conference can be found at http://ice.gelato.org/about/oct06_index.php .

In addition to presenting, Gelato members—some of the world's top supercomputing centers, national labs, research centers, and universities—were able to highlight their current Linux/Itanium research during a poster session. Thirty-nine member institutions presented over 80 projects, denoting a wide range of activities, including: kernel work from UNSW; testing of the Xen virtual machine monitor by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul; various compiler work at the Russian Academy of Sciences, National University of Defense Technology, and Tsinghua University; diverse scientific applications from the Riken Genomic Sciences Center and the University of Tokyo; and projects from Singapore hosts IHPC and NGO.

Posters from the conference can be found at http://www.gelato.org/participants/member_posters.php

"It was amazing to see the enthusiastic exchange and collaborative spirit among end users, developers, researchers, ISVs, and system vendors during this conference," said Mark K. Smith, Gelato managing director. "It was also exciting to hold this Gelato ICE in Singapore, given the strong Itanium processor adoption rate in the Asia-Pacific region."

Upcoming Events for Gelato Federation

Gelato will exhibit at booth #848 at the upcoming Supercomputing Conference (SC06) on November 13-16 in Tampa, Florida and will feature a demonstration highlighting Xen on the Itanium processor as well as examples of the Gelato ICE multi-core programming training.

With the tremendous amount of high-quality technical information delivered and critical mass of Linux and Itanium processor experts attending, the October 2006 Gelato ICE was a major success. The next Gelato ICE is planned for April 15-18, 2007, in San Jose, California. The following Gelato ICE is set for September 30-October 3 in Singapore. Stay tuned to http://www.ice.gelato.org/ for details.

About Gelato

The Gelato Federation is the global technical community dedicated to advancing Linux on the Intel Itanium-based platform through collaboration, education, and leadership. Gelato members are suppliers and users of Linux/Itanium processor technology with a shared goal of producing open-source solutions for academic, government, and industrial high-performance computing users. The Gelato portal (http://www.gelato.org) serves as the primary channel for Federation business and collaborations. Information about Gelato members' software and solutions are available through the portal, and the community is welcome to participate and contribute.

For more information, please contact:
Nan Holda
nan@gelato.org
217.265.0947

Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.