Data Center Links: Aryaka, Alcatel-Lucent, SGI

Here’s our review of some of this week’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Aryaka launches Application Delivery-as-a-Service.  Aryaka announced its Application Delivery as-a-Service, the latest addition to its expanding portfolio to deliver application acceleration and optimized connectivity for applications. By connecting users to the closest Aryaka POP, Internet application response times are accelerated. The company's secure private network of global Points of Presence (POP) removes the application performance limitations associated with traditional solutions that typically combine WAN optimization, network services and CDNs, the company said. "Today’s IT managers are looking for a simpler way to make all their applications run at speeds just like their Local Area Networks (LAN) in a reliable and secure environment with full visibility and control over their traffic," said Ajit Gupta, Founder, President and CEO of Aryaka. "Aryaka’s Application Delivery as-a-Service enables enterprises to leverage the cloud and extend the reach of business applications to users outside the bounds of the traditional corporate network. This new solution is our commitment to provide what customers want – more choices in the market for all services in a simple utility model and with competitive pricing." Aryaka’s network is strategically built to ensure less than 20-millisecond latency to over 90 percent of the world’s business users.

Alcatel-Lucent transforms Cal State network.  Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) announced that California State University (CSU) will operate on local area network equipment from Alcatel-Lucent for the next eight years. Migration to its new high-speed network will also enable the nation's largest four year university system to add cloud computing technology in the future. The estimated $22 million, eight year contract will also save some 'green', by deploying the highly-efficient Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch product line. It is anticipated that four campuses will be completely upgraded to Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch products over the next year. "We expect to gain significant operational efficiencies with this Alcatel-Lucent infrastructure that will also open doors to the future with its flexibility," said Michel Davidoff, Director Cyberinfrastructure CSU, Chancellor’s Office. "We can easily evolve the network to provide more advanced services in the future with minimal investment, such as linking kiosk technology or security. And as a result, we expect to avoid considerable costs over the next eight years.”

SGI selected for 15 Teraflop HPC system.  SGI announced it has been selected by Air Liquide to provide a 15 Teraflop High Performance Computing (HPC) solution. The new system is an essential tool for the group's scientists as they search for solutions that can benefit their clients. As the third upgrade of SGI ICE blade servers since 2008, the new SGI ICE X will house several hundred Xeon cores and 2.3 terabytes of memory. It will contain Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors and Mellanox FDR InfiniBand Non-blocking Interconnect technology. An InfiniteStorage 5500 RAID array is integrated with the system to provide user temporary file space, and a remote visualization capability was also developed by SGI using VirtualGL/Tiger software and NVIDIA GPUs. "High Performance Computing requirements are steadily increasing in our sector and are allowing for accelerated innovation in the areas of energy, environment and health," said Frédéric Camy-Peyret, Modelling & Numerical Simulation R&D program director for Air Liquide. "With simulations that are increasingly reliable and detailed, our molecular modelling and fluid dynamics applications require not only innovative computing architectures, but also high-performance storage. This is a comprehensive solution that SGI can provide."