The latest releases of WMPI (1.6.1) and WMPI II (2.4.1) improve on the existing releases in terms of performance, stability and robustness while taking advantage of new developments in OS system advances. The Linux 2.6 kernel now uses advanced polling mechanisms which outperform the previously used real-time signals and are much more reliable.

''These releases have been long anticipated by the HPC community where WMPI and WMPI II are the most commonly used MPIs for powering compute intensive applications such as CFD and FEA simulators on Windows platforms'', commented Peter Tyndale, HPC Business Development Manager for Critical Software. ''New cleanup mechanisms and improved fault tolerance make these the ideal MPIs for use in desktop cycle stealing scenarios which are of growing interest to Windows users,'' he added.

The latest libraries are available for download from Critical's HPC website with free evaluation licenses that allow them to be used for 40 days on 4 CPUs before an annual or perpetual license needs to be purchased.

HP’s Unified Cluster Portfolio is made up of packaged cluster solutions designed to enable rapid deployment of compute-intensive applications on HP Cluster Platforms. The range offers a broad choice of processors, cluster interconnects and middleware with WMPI II being selected as the MPI-2 implementation to support Opteron and Xeon G4 based Linux and Windows systems.

WMPI II was chosen for its high performance characteristics, its wide adoption in the fields of CFD and FEA simulation and its multi-platform support.

For more information on the Unified Cluster Portfolio visit HP’s website: www.hp.com/techservers/clusters/sw_development.html

ASPEED Software plans to include Critical Software’s high performance fault tolerant message passing technology in its next release of ACCELLERANT expected later this month. “We were looking for a robust messaging technology that would deliver optimum and reliable communication performance for moving data among our ACCELLERANT On-Demand Application servers,” said Kurt Ziegler, Executive Vice President of Development at ASPEED. “We needed a middleware that would fit seamlessly into out application software and would be totally transparent to the underlying infrastructure, only Critical Software could deliver.”

Critical Software is well known in the high performance computing (HPC) sector which makes extensive use of its WMPI II software product. WMPI II is a full implementation of version 2 of the MPI (Message Passing Interface) standard.

To address ASPEED’s needs Critical Software specifically developed a new message passing layer called WMX which provides high performance messaging combined with the level of fault tolerance and abstraction necessary to run the business critical ASPEED ACCELLERATED applications. WMX uses a master-slave paradigm to ensure failed and stalled nodes can be restarted by ACCELLERANT’s fault detection services and to support the adaptive and dynamic load balancing across widely distributed Linux and Windows based clusters such as those found in Grid environments.

“ASPEED’s requirements for a high performing, robust message passing technology could not be met by a standard MPI implementation,” said Peter Tyndale, Product Manager of Critical Software’s HPC division. “The most common paradigm for fault tolerance in MPIs is check-pointing but this is expensive in terms of CPU cycles and is inflexible. Our approach with WMX maintains the low latencies and high throughput required while allowing jobs to be dynamically managed ensuring the integrity of business critical applications,” he added.

Critical Software’s HPC team can assist ISVs with integrating their applications with WMPI II, as well as providing customised message passing middleware. A free evaluation version of WMPI II can be downloaded directly from the web at www.criticalsoftware.com/HPC .

Find out more about ACCELLERANT at www.aspeed.com.

High bandwidth, low latency HPC clusters are now a reality for Windows users with the showcasing at the SuperComputing 2004 conference of WMPI II running on Infinicon System’s high-speed Infiniband based network fabric. WMPI II is a full implementation of the MPI-2 message passing standard allowing compute intensive algorithms to be run in parallel over low-cost COTS clusters.

“Most Windows cluster users are running with Fast or Gigabit Ethernet interconnects, which can give good results on small clusters but are not really scalable,” stated Peter Tyndale, Business Development Manager for Critical Software. “With WMPI II supporting the InfiniCon fabric we are aiming to give users bandwidths of up to 10 Gbps with latencies of less than 10μs scalable to thousands of nodes. This will prove particularly beneficial to applications which become latency bound as the number of parallel processes increases such as in CFD and FEA simulations,” he added.

Critical Software has worked closely with InfiniCon who have provided technical and hardware support for this latest enhancement to WMPI II.

“By bringing the benefits of InfiniBand to the Windows-based high performance computing market, we allow customers to experience greater levels of application performance,” says InfiniCon CEO Russ Hawkins. “Our groundbreaking solutions have been proven to meet the demands of high performance business computing environments, exceeding the performance of traditional networking technologies.”

-- Critical Software to Distribute the AMD64-Optimized PathScale EKOPath Compiler Suite to Provide Superior Scalability to Linux Cluster Users --

Critical Software, the world’s first commercial company to offer a full MPI-2 compliant implementation for both Linux and Windows clusters, and PathScale, developer of the world’s fastest compilers for AMD Opteron™ processor-based Linux clusters, have announced that Critical Software’s WMPI II ™ now provides additional performance improvements and greater scalability for MPI based applications. NAS parallel benchmark results show that WMPI II can run parallel applications up to 56% faster when those applications are compiled with Pathscale instead of gcc, with an average gain over the entire benchmark of 19% (on an AMD Opteron processor-based SMP cluster running SuSE Linux). In addition, Critical Software has launched an initiative to promote and sell the PathScale EKOPath Compiler Suite to its HPC customers worldwide. Critical Software thus becomes the latest HPC technology innovator to join PathScale’s FastPath™ global partner program.

HPC users in research organizations and academic institutions along with the commercial manufacturing, oil exploration, aerospace and defense industries can now take advantage of the scalability and performance advantages of highly parallel Linux-based AMD Opteron processor-based clusters fully optimized by advanced middleware and compiler technologies from Critical Software and PathScale.

“Our recently-completed benchmarks of Critical Software’s flagship WMPI II™ implementation of the MPI-2 message passing interface standard, which were compiled using PathScale technology, produced substantial performance improvements and greater scalability for MPI-based applications,” said João Carreira, CEO of Critical Software. “These results demonstrate that the PathScale EKO Compiler Suite integrated with WMPI II constitutes the ideal development environment for Linux-based MPI applications.”

While developing WMPI II, Critical Software collaborated with PathScale engineers to create specific middleware components and header files to link more efficiently into PathScale’s compiler architecture. This enhances the performance of MPI applications such as oil reservoir simulations, weather models, computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis running on AMD64-based clusters. This joint optimization by Critical Software and PathScale further increases the price/performance advantages of AMD Opteron processor-based clusters.

“Clustered computing is rapidly becoming the architecture of choice for MPI applications for simulation and modeling,” said Art Goldberg, Chief Operating Officer of PathScale. “When complex MPI libraries are compiled using PathScale compilers, the result is a clearly higher performance environment that all HPC users, both commercial and research-oriented, can leverage for optimal results.”

“Companies like PathScale and Critical Software are making important contributions to the Linux and HPC markets,” said Ben Williams, vice president of enterprise and server/workstation business for AMD’s Microprocessor Business Unit. “The AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture and the innovative solutions from our partners are delivering valuable performance advantages for demanding HPC and enterprise applications.”

Both the PathScale EKOPath Compiler Suite for the AMD Opteron processor and Critical Software’s WMPI II for HPC clusters are available on a free evaluation basis from Critical Software’s offices in Europe and North America. To request or download the trial version of the EKO compiler suite, visit www.pathscale.com/trial.php.

Version 2.4.0 of WMPI II has involved a complete redesign of the services module to utilise XML. This has meant several improvements could be made to installation and configuration procedures.

The new features include:

• Improved fault tolerance - if a job is terminated unexpectedly, all processes associated with that job are cleaned up, no matter what.


• Improved error reporting - more comprehensive explanations of what went wrong and why.


• Improved installation and configuration procedures - you can now run your parallel application from a network drive rather than having to install the executable on each compute node in the cluster.

See the user guide for a complete features list.

Support for the latest versions of Absoft and Lahey Windows compilers has also been added.

Version 2.4.0 for Linux will follow soon.

Download a trial version of WMPI II release 2.4.0 for Windows now.

In a landmark announcement for the HPC community, Critical Software announces the release of WMPI II for IA-64, the first Message Passing Interface (MPI-2) implementation which runs on Windows clusters based on the Intel Itanium 2 64-bit architecture.

''This is an important release for us and for the HPC community as a whole,'' stated Peter Tyndale, Business Development Manager for Critical Software. ''High Performance Technical Computing is a key area which can benefit from the increased memory capacity of Intel’s 64-bit processors but, until now, Windows cluster users were unable to run their MPI applications on this architecture,'' he added.

Critical Software have worked closely with Intel to produce this latest version of WMPI II, with technical and hardware support being provided through the Intel Early Access programme.

WMPI 1.6 is the latest release of Critical Software's HPC middleware which implements version 1.2 of the MPI standard, replacing the previous version 1.5.8.

The new version is founded on the same code base as our WMPI II product, which is a full implementation of version 2 of the MPI standard. This means that WMPI 1.6 benefits from many enhancements and additional features that were specifically develped for WMPI II. For example, WMPI 1.6 now runs on Linux clusters, on AMD 64 bit CPUs, supports numerous debugging and profiling tools, comes with improved documentation and has superior performance characteristics.

As with all previous releases, you can download a fully-featured trial version so you can try before you buy.

In order to facilitate benchmarking and performance evaluation of your MPI applications, a set of pre-configured WMPI II projects with the HP Linpack and SKAMPI benchmark suites are now available for download. Please go to the WMPI II Utilities page for full details.

Critical, in a constant effort to make life easier for WMPI users, is also providing online documentation for all its WMPI libraries in the Downloads section.

Following the recent HPC Web Site re-launch and the release of WMPI II 2.3.0, Critical Software is now offering the opportunity for all organizations, both dedicated to non-profit R&D activities and commercial ones, to purchase one of the top, full MPI-2 implementations available on the market - WMPI II - by offering very attractive prices.

''Our main goal is to give the opportunity for all MPI users and enthusiasts to try and use one of the top, full MPI-2 implementations on the market today, and raise awareness of our products in some platforms, especially in the Linux world,'' said Peter Tyndale, Business Development Manager of the HPC Division at Critical Software.

It is now possible to purchase WMPI II for the price of WMPI 1.5 in the past. If you want to know more information please contact WMPI Sales at: wmpi-sales@criticalsoftware.com

Critical Software adds integration in WMPI II for some of the most widely used profiling and debugging tools used in the MPI world. WMPI II, build 2.3.0 now integrates with the Intel Cluster Tools, more specifically, the Intel Trace Analyzer and Intel Trace Collector. These tools were formerly known as Vampir and Vampir Trace and originally developed by the Pallas HPC group. To facilitate debugging of your parallel applications, WMPI II now supports the Distributed Debugging Tool (DDT) from Streamline Computing. For a list of suported versions and platforms, please read the product documentation.

Apart from these additional tools support, the newly released WMPI II version is the fastest WMPI version ever released, including major performance improvements both on Windows and Linux platforms. Internal performance benchmarking and fine-tuning was done during the past weeks, allowing WMPI II to achieve oustanding results on the Windows and Linux versions using the NAS and LINPACK benchmarks.

AMD are promoting Critical Software's High Performance Computing solutions at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) taking place in Seattle this week.

Critical's flagship product, WMPI II, takes advantage of the low latency and high bandwidth 64-bit architecture of the AMD Opteron processor. For information on WinHEC 2004 visit the Microsoft WinHEC website.

Sun Microsystems, Inc today announced that Critical software joins its HPTC alliance, adding its high performance MPI-2 implementation, WMPI II, to Sun's Grid offering:

''Sun's 20 new HPTC alliance partners represent some of the hottest technologies in the industry and can contribute to building a complete Grid solution.'' said Shahin Khan, vice president of the HPTC Business Unit at Sun.

The full text of the announcement can be found on the Sun Press Release website.

The new WMPI II version adds support and integration for the Distributed Debugging Tool (DDT) from Streamline Computing and Intel Cluster Tools (formerly Vampir and Vampirtrace).

WMPI II now runs on AMD64 platforms over special 64-bit versions of Windows and Linux operating systems. This WMPI II version is compatible with AMD Athlon64 and AMD Opteron architectures. The range of supported operating systems include MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2003 Server, SuSe Linux and Mandrake Linux distributions. This release constitutes the first step of a major effort to migrate the premium and industry-strength WMPI II library to the 64-bit world.

Stay focused on the HPC Site for more news and updates relating the Intel IA-64 (Itanium 2) platform migration.

After the successfull release of WMPI II Linux at the beginning of the year, Critical Software now focuses its efforts on an AMD64 enabled version of WMPI II, reinforcing its decision and commitment on supporting 64-bit platforms.

The company expects to release WMPI II for AMD64 processors during the next month, being this the first step to port and migrate WMPI II for 64-bit platforms and operating systems.

Following the recent worldwide release of WMPI II Linux, Critical Software is now offering the possibility for R&D laboratories, Academia institutions and Universities to purchase one of the top MPI-2 implementations available on the market - WMPI II - by offering very attractive discounts.

The special discounts for these organizations are, for the next 2 months, more than 50% of the original price table. If you want to know more information about this special and time-limited promotion please contact WMPI Sales department through the email: wmpi-sales@criticalsoftware.com.

Critical Software proudly announces the availability of WMPI II Linux (version 2.2.0).

With the release of WMPI II Linux, Critical Software demonstrates once again its strong commitment and effort on the development and deployment of state-of-the-art MPI solutions for the HPC community. WMPI II is the first worldwide MPI-2 standard implementation for heterogeneous, general-purpose PC's.

WMPI II for Linux is available on many Linux-based distributions such as, Debian, Turbo Linux, SuSe, Red Hat, Gentoo and others. Please check the product features for a full listing of supported platforms and compilers. Now you, as a MPI developer, have the opportunity to use MPI-2 standard features in Windows and Linux based platforms for the first time!

Accompanying the WMPI II Linux release, the new HPC Site is more complete providing new information and functionality:

- New HPC Web Site PARTNERS section with WMPI OEM's, resellers and technology partners.

- New WMPI mailing lists for MPI users to share experiences, problems and discuss MPI technology in general. It is possible for any registered user to join the new mailing lists on the WMPI 1.5 and WMPI II Support sections.

- New online documentation in HTML format may now be available for WMPI products.

- Several Web-based UI improvements during registration form and login/logout.

Please stay focused on the HPC Web Site for more updates and releases in the near future.

With WMPI II for Linux, Critical Software provides a complete line of middleware products based on the MPI standard for heterogeneous general-purpose, off-the-shelf clusters of PC's. The Linux version will enable MPI users to setup mixed clusters, using both Windows and Linux-based platforms to execute MPI applications.

The major advantages of the WMPI II Linux version will be the same that allowed for the WMPI II for Windows success and vast acceptance:

- Comprehensive implementation of the MPI-2 standard.

- Full thread safety, OpenMP ready.

- Supports C/C++ and Fortran bindings.

- Professional technical support.

- Automatic remote installation.

- Support for most used C/C++ and Fortran IDE's and compilers.

- Strong commitment to WMPI development and improvements through an experienced technical and support team.

The new WMPI II 2.2.0 version has significant TCP performance improvements, supporting non-blocking overlapped I/O to send and receive data, and is the first in the WMPI family that allows computations to run on Windows and Linux nodes. This version is already prepared for MPI computations with the soon to be released WMPI II for Linux.

SuperComputing 2003, one of the most important conferences worldwide related to High-Performance Computing technological advances and news will count with the presence of Critical Software. The conference features the latest scientific and technical innovations from around the world, while its SC Global events will showcase achievements in the arts and sciences among dozens of remote locations. The conference will be held on Arizona, USA from the 15th to the 21st of November and the conference web site can be visited at: http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2003/.

Critical Software, represented as a Microsoft Corp. partner and present at the MS booth, will demonstrate its latest HPC products including its premium middleware product - WMPI II for Windows.

The new WMPI II version 2.1.2 product now adds full support for Windows NT 4.0 operating system (SP4 or higher), solves some C++ linkage problems and manages memory access more efficiently.

The new WMPI 1.5.8 version adds more robustness, corrects specific configuration files problems and improves the initial startup time of computations.

WMPI 1.5.7, now released, contains all the major improvements introduced by the recently released WMPI II for Windows (version 2.1.1). WMPI users and developers can now experience significant performance improvements in their MPI applications specially at the TCP/IP level. Pay attention to the HPC web site for more news, updates and functionality additions to the WMPI line of products in the next months.

The new WMPI II for Windows version (2.1.1) contains major performance improvements since this version has been fine-tuned to take full advantage of the Microsoft Windows TCP/IP stack implementation. Furthermore, part of the core of WMPI has been rewritten increasing the scalability so that WMPI II now runs on hundreds of CPU's.

WMPI 1.5.7 will be released shortly, on a few days from WMPI II release date, and will implement the same major improvements as its version II counterpart.

Critical Software puts its efforts on constantly developing and improving its existing WMPI versions. Demonstrating this effort, two new versions - WMPI II for Windows 2.2.0 and WMPI 1.5.7 - will be deployed with major performance and scalability improvements, allowing greater support for large cluster configurations with hundreds of CPU's.

The release of WMPI II for Linux will be postponed for after the releases of WMPI II for Windows and WMPI 1.5.7 as part of the marketing strategy adopted by the company.

WMPI II for Linux, a complete MPI-2 standard implementation for Linux operating systems is on final stages of development and will be released in the 30th of June, 2003. This version will include all the functionality, robustness and features of the widely known WMPI II for Windows, for the C programming language.

With WMPI II for Linux, Critical Software provides a complete line of middleware products based on the MPI standard for general-purpose, off-the-shelf clusters of PC's.

The Linux version will now enable MPI users to setup mixed clusters, using both Windows and Linux-based platforms to execute MPI applications.

Critical Software, is now an official sponsor of the 10th EuroPVM/MPI 2003 conference and will be present as an industry representative and leading provider of MPI technologies.

Euro PVM/MPI 2003 will focus on various aspects of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and their application. The scope of the conference has been extended to specifically include Cluster and Grid Computing. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

- Parallel algorithms using the message-passing paradigm

- Parallel applications in science and engineering

- Parallel data mining applications

- Latest extensions and improvements to PVM and MPI

- PVM/MPI in Clusters and Grids

- Tools for PVM and MPI

- Performance evaluation of PVM and MPI

- PVM and MPI implementation issues

- Novel message-passing paradigms for Grids and P2P

The conference web site can be visited at: http://www.dsi.unive.it/pvmmpi03

The latest release of Critical Software's high-end, premium product -WMPI II version 2.1.0 - includes:

- C++ bindings (C89 standard) which supports MS Visual C++ 6.0 and 7.0 (.NET) or any other C89 compliant C++ compiler.

- Fortran bindings (F77 and F90 standard) which supports the widely known Compaq Visual Fortran, Absoft Fortan e Lahey Fortran IDE's/compilers.

- Bug fixes and improved configuration/setup.

- Improved performance, specially at the TCP/IP level.

The soon to be released WMPI II version 2.1.0, includes many exciting features and functionalities awaited by many MPI community users, which include:

- C++ bindings (C89 standard) which supports MS Visual C++ 6.0 and 7.0 (.NET) or any other C89 compliant C++ compiler.

- Fortran bindings (F77 and F90 standard) which supports the widely known Compaq Visual Fortran, Absoft Fortan e Lahey Fortran IDE's/compilers.

- Bug fixes and improved configuration/setup.

- Improved performance, specially at the TCP/IP level.

WMPI II for Linux, a complete MPI-2 standard implementation for Linux operating systems is under development and will be released during the 2nd quarter of 2003. This version will include all the functionality, robustness and features of the widely known WMPI II for Windows, including improved cluster configuration tools.

With the Linux version, MPI users may setup mixed clusters, using both Windows and Linux-based platforms to execute MPI applications.

Critical Software announces the release of its premium product - WMPI II - the most comprehensive implementation of the MPI 2 standard up to date for Windows clusters.

WMPI II is a production-strength middleware, professionally supported, with a long-term commitment from Critical Software S.A., and it is available for Windows™ platforms (NT/2000/XP).

WMPI II now released by Critical Software is a brand new product, reengineered from scratch, and the result of almost two years of research and development by the company. WMPI II is in the high-end of Critical Software’s suite of middleware products for HPC, which already include widely used WMPI (based on version 1.2 of the standard) and Patent MPI.

WMPI II is a production-strength middleware, professionally supported, with a long-term commitment from Critical Software S.A., and is available for Windows™ platforms (NT/2000/XP).

WMPI II is the most comprehensive worldwide MPI-2 compliant implementation for general purpose Windows clusters. After the release of WMPI II, Critical Software will concentrate its efforts on the development of WMPI II for Linux systems and advanced cluster management tools.

Two new institutions interested in WMPI II MPI-2 features, participate in the Beta Testing Program.

University of Southampton UK, through the Windows Cluster Resource Centre team (already experienced in participating in several beta testing programs) join for the test of WMPI II beta release.

The major financial institution, Credit Suisse First Boston, also participates in this program effort.

Critical Software, SA officially announces it's new High-Performance Computing Web Site to existing customers and the MPI and High Performance community worldwide.

The HPC Web Site concentrates all information about the three, widely known, Critical Software MPI library implementations: WMPI II, WMPI I and PaTENT MPI. In the Site, licensing, product and support information can be found as well as trial versions available for download.

The WMPI II Beta Testing program is now in preparation for a new phase. WMPI II Beta Release is available for beta tester partners and undergoing for an evaluation and experimentation period.

Critical Software, accompanying the pre-release of WMPI II - the high-end middleware product for high-performance computing in Windows clusters - finalizes preparations for the launch of Critical Software’s HPC (High-Performance Computing) Web Site.

The HPC Web Site will merge and concentrate all information about the three Critical Software MPI library implementations: WMPI II, WMPI I and PaTENT MPI. In the Site, licensing, product and support information can be found as well as trial versions available for download.

The new Web Site is a demonstration of the company’s commitment to develop commercial MPI implementations to the high-performance computing market and MPI community word-wide.

Critical Software, S.A. is now almost ready to release WMPI II, a brand new enterprise product that is the most comprehensive MPI-2 standard implementation for Windows platforms up to date in the market.

WMPI II will be released with Process Creation and Management (Dynamic Process Cretion) functionality, One-sided communication, Parallel I/O, Extended Collective Operations and new User Defined Datatypes in the last quarter of 2002. WMPI II beta-testing programme includes companies such as Powerllel, Century Dynamics, BNP Paribas and others.

Please stay focused on WMPI Web Site news for more developments on the subject.

This new WMPI version is more customizable and includes several bug fixes. Please read the product Release Notes for more information.

WMPI II, the new-generation product based on the MPI 2 standard is expected to be released in the 4th Quarter of 2002.

Critical Software's WMPI middleware technology for cluster computing gains new Fortune'500 customers - ChevronTexaco, and Telecom and Aerospace giants: Deutsche Telekom and British Aerospace.

WMPI II, the new-generation product based on the MPI 2 standard is expected to be released in 4Q 2002.

A new WMPI version was released. WMPI 1.5.5 includes several bug fixes, support for multiple NICs and improved platform configuration utilities.

NOTE: due to low market demand and technical constraints of the architecture provided by Windows 9x and Me versions, these were deprecated and are no longer supported in the recent WMPI versions.

Although Windows 95 and Windows 98 share most of the architecture and functionality, the system DLLs have quite different versions. Several customers are reporting problems with old DLLs in W95 systems.

The key feature of this new version (1.53) is its support for Windows 95/98 and ME. Gathering the feedback of the more than a thousand users that have evaluated WMPI in the past months, we were also able to improve the stability and performance of the library. The startup mechanism has also improved and now the executables can be specified in the form machinepath. The Fortran bindings were improved (for both F77 and F90 compilers). TCP device was restructured which resulted in better performance and stability. Changes to the shared memory device allowed for a one-memory copy message exchange.

Critical Software will continue Patent MPI commercialization and provide support for existing PatentMPI Customers. With this agreement Critical Software has become the leading MPI technology provider in Europe.

WMPI was originally developed at the University of Coimbra , Portugal, and has become a performance leader among MPI implementations for Microsoft Windows with thousands of users worldwide. The success of WMPI has driven a new stage in its development within Critical Software towards a commercial solution that answers the users needs in terms of professional technical support, commitment for long-term development and customization. Critical Software is committed to support WMPI as a commercial product worldwide in the long-term while still providing special conditions for Academia and R centers that intensively use WMPI for noncommercial R purposes.