SGI announced the latest generation of SGI Altix ICE, a highly flexible, tightly integrated blade architecture based on the latest Intel Xeon (codenamed "Sandy Bridge EP") processor series. This newest Altix ICE solution represents the fifth generation of the award-winning high performance computing (HPC) solution, offering numerous advancements in performance and density while addressing the ongoing need to consolidate computing "cluster sprawl."

This next generation Altix ICE, with support for FDR InfiniBand, improves upon SGI's robustly designed, integrated blade system and continues the heritage of a purposefully designed scale-out technical computing solution. Generation over generation, the system design has become increasingly more flexible, enabling a broader range of options for compute nodes, topology types, InfiniBand fabric design, power, and cooling. The system is expected to scale to 2,304 cores in a single rack and boast several features, including:

-- New "building-block" blade enclosure design that offers an increase over the standard 16 to 18 blade slots and 36 compute nodes per enclosure;

-- Intel Xeon (codenamed "Sandy Bridge EP") processor series-based two-socket node blades optimized for memory footprint and power;

-- Separable, upgradeable and independently scalable power shelves;

-- Choice of air cooling, bolt-on water cooling at the rack level, or optional liquid cooling at the compute node level;

-- Industry standard 19-inch width SGI D-Rack and a custom rack design for high density closed loop deployment, enabling multiple data center environment support.

"Over the years, SGI Altix ICE has enabled users in numerous fields to make significant advancements," said SGI CTO Dr. Eng Lim Goh. "This next generation design of Altix ICE starts at an affordable 10 teraflops, suitable for high performance computing for the masses or small- and medium-sized companies. From there, it seamlessly scales to more than 100 petaflops, making this the architecture leading to our exascale computing solution."

"Customers in the HPC industry need outstanding performance in a high density form factor with excellent power efficiency," said Rajeeb Hazra, general manager of High Performance Computing at Intel. "By using Intel Xeon processors (codenamed "Sandy Bridge EP"), customers with data-intensive problems will get the newest generation of Intel and SGI's high performance computing technology, paving the way for customers to improve the resolution of their models, and deliver more meaningful scientific and technical results."

Designed to industry standard widths at the enclosure level, this latest generation of Altix ICE integrates seamlessly into multiple data center floor plan designs, including those with traditional hot/cold aisle configurations, high density closed loop cooling and large scale container deployments. The newest version of Altix ICE is expected to ship in time with the next generation Intel Xeon (codenamed "Sandy Bridge EP") processor series.