Interested in doing some fluid dynamics analysis, atmospheric modeling or studying molecular structures, but need a computing cluster to do it? Belgian blade server maker Hemeris Computing is selling on-demand computing services based on Hemeris’ own 64-unit cluster of dual-processor Power Mac G4s. Computing time is sold on a “pay per use” model, with prices starting below US$1 per hour.
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That’s only the start of Hemeris’ vision, however. Hemeris Computing is designing a dual-processor PowerPC-based blade server of its own, which it plans to release in the second quarter of 2003.
Blade servers are designed as more cost, power and space-efficient alternatives to conventional server boxes. Designed to be rack-mounted, Hemeris’ own blades contain two Motorola PowerPC 7455 processors operating at 733MHz. The Hemeris server will come equipped with 2GB DDRAM, on-board hard disk storage, and other features. Hemeris anticipates releasing its blade server into volume production and general availability during the second quarter of 2003.
Hemeris’ hope is that the new blade server will appeal to businesses, research institutes, universities and other organizations that want to build large supercomputing clusters based around the PowerPC architecture. In keeping with Hemeris’ computing-on-demand model, the company also plans to build its own internal cluster comprising 1,250 such blade servers, for a total of 2,500 processors that organizations will be able to buy time on to crunch their data.
Hemeris invites companies interested in the units to get in touch with them for more details — info is available on their Web site.