Platform Computing Corp has unveiled the latest incarnation of its LSF Load Sharing Facility, workload management systems software, putting the emphasis on Windows NT. Platform says support for NT is now a par with Unix, the system the Toronto, Canada-based company’s software originally appeared on (CI No 2,659). Platform is claiming the 3.1 version has enhanced workload analysis features, mainframe-class job scheduling and a more intuitive graphical user interface. Platform’s LSF software gained some welcome exposure at the Supercomputing 97 show in San Jose, California earlier this week, where it was used as part of Compaq Computer Corp’s compute farm demonstration (CI No 3,293). Platform has signed an agreement with Compaq which will see the Houston, Texas-based firm help market and develop the LSF product suite on Windows NT systems, and the two say that the agreement should encourage developers to port more sophisticated applications to the operating system. .The LSF software is designed to enable batch, interactive and parallel jobs to be dynamically distributed across the network so as to maximise system efficiency. LSF sits between the base system application programming interface and applications on the server to create a single system image, designed to enable users to treat their distributed hardware and software resources as a single virtual mainframe or a virtual supercomputer. Key components in the suite include a analyzer, job scheduler, batch tool and a multi-cluster module to enable workload management and resource sharing across multiple clusters. Platform claims existing versions of its LSF Suite are now installed on more than 60,000 computers worldwide.
