PARIS, March 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
- Bull has Become an Indisputable Player in the High-Performance
Computing Field in Europe, With Exceptional Growth Over the Past Three
Years, Major Contracts, Numerous Records Broken and Significant Investments
in R&D
Following today's proposal by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy in
the presence of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel during the opening of
CeBIT, concerning a joint Franco-German supercomputer programme, Bull
wishes to add the following information.
High-Performance Computing (HPC): a major challenge for society...
HPC has become absolutely essential in industry and in university
research activities. In aeronautical engineering, energy, climatology,
biosciences, financial services, sport, video games... computer modeling
and simulation have permeated almost every domain. Computer simulation in
particular has helped to reduce product development costs, and ensure that
more reliable and innovative products, that consume less energy, get to
market more quickly. HPC has become a vital investigative tool for
researchers, a major competitive differentiator for companies, and even a
fundamental component of State sovereignty.
...and a strategic commitment from Bull
Bull's strategy in scientific computing is inextricably bound up with
its historic expertise in complex networks and large-scale IT systems, and
with its positioning as 'Architect of an Open World(TM)'. But this strategy
really comes into its own in the current market, which is undergoing
radical change with the pre-eminence of standard processors and Open Source
software. It's a strategy that has led Bull to become one of the pioneers
in the design of large-scale supercomputers based on open, standard
components and on networked 'cluster' architectures, enabling its customers
to take full advantage of high performance open systems that are also
highly scalable, and highly competitive compared with the leading
proprietary systems.
Exceptional growth
Although it was still virtually unknown in the world of HPC as recently
as 2005, Bull has now won worldwide recognition thanks to Tera-10, the
first large-scale supercomputer designed and developed by Bull for the CEA
(the French Atomic Energy Authority): ranked in June 2006 as number one in
Europe and number five in the world in terms of computing power. Since
then, Bull has made a significant contribution to re-energizing the HPC
market; by making high-performance computing solutions much more widely
available to research and industry alike. With over 100 customers in 15
countries across three continents, Bull gathered significant momentum in
HPC during 2007. But the aim is to go much further, and much faster: this
year we want to double our revenues from this segment.
Major contracts
The spread of countries and industry sectors covered, as well as the
sheer diversity of solutions that Bull has sold, illustrates the reputation
that the company now enjoys. From the first major supercomputer installed
at the CEA to the latest machine - a system delivering in excess of 25
teraflops, purchased in February 2008 by Cardiff University (Professor Sir
Martin Evans FRS being awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2007) - with
numerous supercomputers delivered to many other higher education
establishments in Brazil, France, Spain, Germany... along the way. In
industry, prestigious customers including Alcan, Pininfarina,
Dassault-Aviation and Alenia have chosen Bull solutions. And Miracle
Machines in Singapore recently implemented a Bull supercomputer that will
be used to study and help predict tsunamis.
Numerous records broken
Alongside this commercial success, the breaking of a number of world
records highlights Bull's expertise in the design and integration of the
most advanced technologies. Based on the design of the computer that was
the most powerful in Europe and number five in the world in 2006, Bull
technologies have achieved some major performance records, particularly for
ultra-large file systems, image searches in very large-scale databases (the
engines of future research), and the search for new prime numbers.
Recently, these systems have also been used to carry out the most extensive
simulation ever of the formation of the structures of the Universe.
Significant investments in R&D
Bull has put in place all the human and physical resources needed to
create and support an offering that meets the high demands of centers of
excellence in scientific and industrial computing.
In order to further develop and grow its business in the HPC
marketplace, Bull has recruited new talents: over 100 engineers with
expertise in HPC technology have joined Bull in the past two years, to
boost the existing teams and specialists trained internally in this field.
This recruitment drive has covered every area, from HPC development and
benchmarking, to marketing, sales, maintenance and management. These
technical teams now make up Europe's largest group of experts in this
sector amongst any of the companies involved in HPC.
Bull's acquisition of Serviware in October 2007 is a fundamental part
of the company's investment strategy, designed to enhance its presence in
the market. This acquisition demonstrates Bull's desire to be involved not
only in academic projects, but also in projects of all sizes in industry,
the area in which Serviware specializes. This move will widen Bull's
commercial footprint, and so increase sales volumes and open up
opportunities for current and future offerings, as well as broadening the
range of expertise that the Group can now offer its customers and
prospects.
Numerous partnerships in the main areas of HPC: from hardware platform
design to the implementation of industrial applications
Bull designs its HPC platforms in collaboration with leading partners
in their specialist areas; most notably, Intel for processors, Quadrics and
Voltaire (Infiniband) for network infrastructures, Data Direct Networks in
storage, and CFS for the Lustre file management system. In the field of
applications for industry, Bull has formed partnerships with the main
software publishers including Fluent/Ansys, CD-Adapco and ESI. Bull is also
developing an operating system specifically designed for open,
high-performance HPC systems - based on the Red Hat Linux - whose qualities
are recognized by the development community.
To prepare the systems of the future, Bull is a founder or member of
several important consortia including Talos (which brings together Intel,
the CEA, Quadrics and Stuttgart University Computing Center) and Parma,
which forms part of ITEA2 and brings together a large number of European
research centers to develop the next generation of parallel systems.
Finally, Bull is a founder member of the POPS consortium - under the
auspices of the SYSTEM@TIC competitiveness cluster based in the Ile de
France region, which is developing tomorrow's petaflop-scale systems.
An undisputed major player in the IT industry and in Europe
Europe has long lagged behind in HPC. Reports published in France, such
as those by Heon and Sartorius (2005), and those produced by the Academy of
Technologies and, subsequently, the Academy of Sciences, certainly helped
to bring decision-makers' attention to Europe's position in HPC, and in
particular the situation in France. As a result, for a number of years now,
and in particular since the groundbreaking moment when Tera-10 was ranked
among the world's most powerful supercomputers, this position seems be
changing. Many research centers have equipped themselves with
supercomputers over recent years, and are now ranked among the pacesetters
in HPC. And Bull's renewed momentum is absolutely in line with this
positive movement.
With today's announcement, this movement has without doubt been given a
considerable boost: European High-Performance computing will emerge
considerably stronger as a result enabling its return to the forefront. And
Bull is ready to face the European challenge, and act as the key industrial
component - whether alone or in partnership - in meeting that challenge.
Bull is very proud of the fact that, a number of years ago, the Group
identified and anticipated the coming evolutions in computer simulation
technologies, and was able to position itself in good time to seize the
opportunities this offered, to the greater benefit of its customers. This
is a considerable source of pride for the Group, its people, its partners
and the customers who have shown their faith in Bull and its role in the
race towards the world of virtual computer simulation. But this is also
something that the French and European IT industry can be proud of: going
from a virtually non-existent presence in HPC a few years ago, to the point
where today it now ranks among the best in the world, alongside the very
biggest players in the field.
Now, more than ever, Bull is ready to be the industrial center of this
new movement; bringing its experience to bear and with the support of its
industrial and technological partners.
About Bull, Architect of an Open World(TM)
As one of the leading European IT companies, Bull delivers open,
flexible and secure information systems. The group helps public and private
sector customers transform their information systems, applying its know-how
and expertise in three main areas:
- Capitalizing on its extensive mainframe experience, Bull designs and
produces robust, innovative and open servers, based on industry-standard
technologies;
- Building on its alliances with leading ISVs and long-standing
involvement with Open Source, Bull develops and implements flexible and
interoperable application infrastructures which give business processes the
freedom to evolve;
- Bringing together recognized expertise in end-to-end IT security,
Bull secures data and exchanges that are so critical in preserving
customers' business integrity.
Bull has a particularly strong presence in the public, healthcare,
finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and defense sectors. Its
distribution network and business partners cover more than 60 countries
worldwide.
For more information visit: http://www.bull.com
Contacts:
Bull - Anne-Marie Jourdain - Phone: +33(0)1-30-80-32-52 - E-mail:
anne-marie.jourdain@bull.net
Financial Dynamics - Elodie Marchand / Tiphaine Bannelier - Phone :
+33(0)1-47-03-68-10 / +33(0)6-11-47-43-08 - E-mail : elodie.marchand@fd.com
/ tiphaine.bannelier@fd.com
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