Altair Unveils PBS Professional(R) 10, Adds Green Provisioning Feature, Improves Performance and Administrator Controls

TROY, Mich., Nov. 17 MI-Altair-unveils-PBS


TROY, Mich., Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Altair today unveiled PBS
Professional 10, the industry-leading on-demand computing software environment
for grid- and cluster-computing, delivering customers improved performance,
greater administrator control and reduced power costs. As a solution in the
GridWorks suite of products, Altair continues to invest in the development of
PBS Professional to help customers increase software utilization and ROI, and
help improve overall productivity and reduce operational costs.


"PBS Professional 10 continues our tradition of delivering innovative,
high-value features to our customers in a timely fashion.  Our Green
Provisioning feature reduces costs by intelligently scheduling power
management based on predicted and actual utilization," said Dr. Bill Nitzberg,
chief technology officer, GridWorks. "Other introduced features provide
administrators greater control and flexibility as they manage their grid and
cluster computing resources -- which improves overall system performance and
the productivity of its users."



MAJOR FEATURES & BENEFITS


-- Green Computing provides the ability to schedule jobs to minimize the
use of electric power, and provides a Shut-down service when computing
resources are not in use. PBS Professional allows the administrator to set
minimum workload levels, and automatically adjust computing resource use based
on actual demand.


-- Formula-based Scheduling allows for the definition of any user
policy -- and for that policy to be combined with existing policies into one
formula. This ensures smooth transition in job priority, and provides
administrators unmatched control and flexibility.


-- Standing Reservations extend our existing Advance Reservations to use
standards-based iCalendar syntax (RFC 2445) as well as provide a platform for
global use with the inclusion of time zone awareness, including daylight
savings time.


-- Submission Filtering allows administrators to insert hooks (call-outs
to custom executable files) to accept, reject or modify an upcoming action,
for on-the-fly tuning of changing priorities. It provides a higher-level of
control in real time to improve productivity.


-- Job Execution Sandboxes allow separate jobs to be kept separate in
unique directories, removing interference between jobs and improving overall
reliability and scalability.


-- Multi-core support allows customers to immediately realize maximum
value from their multi-core processors.


-- On-Demand-Licensing Model


  1. Users only pay for what they use where customers can enable their
entire infrastructure but only pay for concurrent usage of licenses;


  2. Flexible software licenses that can dynamically float across
enterprise computing resources, even geographically separate systems to meet
changing needs of users;


  3. A single on-demand computing environment that intelligently
schedules applications onto multi-core based infrastructures, maximizing
return on computing capital investments; and


  4. New simplified pricing offered at $13.50 per concurrent license
(North American pricing), or about one quarter the cost of previous pricing,
delivers significantly greater value to customers.




"Crest Animation Studios relies on Altair's PBS Professional workload
management solution to maximize the utilization of high-performance computing
(HPC) resources used in producing animated films, DVDs and television series,"
said Shajy Thomas, head of technology, Crest Animation Studios. "After
deploying PBS Professional and its Green Provisioning technology, we reduced
our operational power requirements by 20% (compared to peak loads). We
estimate that the entire GridWorks Suite paid for itself within the first 12
months of deployment."


The Altair Store, an automated online facility that enables customers to
purchase and download PBS GridWorks software around the clock from any
location is now available at www.pbsgridworks.com .



ABOUT PBS GRIDWORKS


PBS GridWorks is a suite of on-demand grid computing technologies,
developed by Altair Engineering, Inc., that allows enterprises to maximize ROI
on computing infrastructure assets. GridWorks is the most widely implemented
software environment for grid-, cluster- and on-demand computing worldwide.
The suite's flagship product, PBS Professional, provides a flexible, on-demand
computing environment that allows enterprises to easily share diverse
(heterogeneous) computing resources across geographic boundaries. To learn
more, please visit www.pbsgridworks.com .



ABOUT ALTAIR


Altair empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology
that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and
engineering information. Privately held with more than 1,400 employees, Altair
has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific.
With a 20-year-plus track record for product design, advanced engineering
software and grid computing technologies, Altair consistently delivers a
competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn
more, please visit www.altair.com .



SOURCE  Altair