CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Avaki Corporation, a pioneer in global grid software solutions, today announced general availability of AVAKI 2.5, the latest version of its commercial grid software. AVAKI 2.5 incorporates compute and data grid enhancements, including advanced caching mechanisms that increase data grid performance. These dramatic improvements provide wide-area data access with performance comparable to local area access and reduce the administrative burdens on end users and systems administrators. Unlike grid toolkits, which can require substantial custom development, AVAKI 2.5 is fully-functional packaged software that is quick to deploy. AVAKI data grids provide secure, wide-area access to data, giving users and applications the ability to access files and data sets easily and conveniently regardless of location, administrative domain or platform. AVAKI data grids ensure access to the most current, authoritative copy of a given piece of data, automatically. They eliminate the need for systems administrators or end users to manage multiple copies of data or to manually transfer files via inefficient methods such as FTP, CD, or tape. Furthermore, by utilizing advanced caching mechanisms, AVAKI data grids provide wide-area data access with levels of performance approaching that of local area access. The full benefits of the data grid can be realized with no changes to applications or the way users typically access their data. "In life sciences, we face the formidable challenge of having multiple organizations in distributed locales who want to collaborate with each other in order to accelerate research efforts," said Dr. Thom Dunning, Director of North Carolina Bioinformatics Grid project. "AVAKI's data grid simplifies this process by allowing life sciences organizations to take advantage of the ever-expanding genomic and proteomic data that is becoming available - regardless of data location." Andrew Grimshaw, Founder and CTO of AVAKI, summarizes, "AVAKI 2.5 gives its users the ability to share very large files (64 bit) between sites and organizations. This is a critical need in the Life Sciences and in engineering intensive manufacturing companies that need to share data across departments and partners. AVAKI 2.5 represents AVAKI's continued commitment to improving our industry leading technology in ways that solve real world problems." AVAKI 2.5 is comprehensive grid software that provides wide area access to processing, data, and application resources in a single, uniform operating environment. AVAKI grids unify resources across locations and administrative domains with different hardware, operating systems, and system configurations, creating an environment that is secure and easy to administer. Going beyond compute grids - which provide access to distributed and heterogeneous processing resources - AVAKI offers wide-area access to data and applications as well, streamlining data-intensive computing processes and reducing the need for ad hoc manual steps. Unlike grid toolkits, which require substantial custom development, AVAKI 2.5 is fully-functional packaged software that is quick to deploy and is backed by AVAKI Corporation's expert customer service. For more information visit www.avaki.com.