Linux-Itanium at the Gelato Meeting

World's Largest Gathering of Linux-Itanium Experts at Gelato Meeting

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (June 23, 2005)--Over 150 scientists, developers, and engineers 
convened from all around the globe for the May 2005 meeting of the Gelato Federation 
(http://www.gelato.org), an international organization dedicated to advancing 
Linux on the Intel® Itanium® processor. This was the largest gathering of Linux-Itanium 
professionals that the world has seen to date, with delegates from more than 
30 Gelato member institutions and significant representation from Gelato sponsors 
HP, SGI, and Intel. The event was hosted by Gelato founding sponsor, HP, at its 
Palo Alto and Cupertino campuses May 23-25. 

"Our May meeting was the best attended and had the strongest technical program 
to date," stated Mark K. Smith, Gelato managing director. "It was a historic 
meeting bringing together Gelato members and our sponsors, HP, Intel, and SGI, 
to discuss ways to work together to expand the Linux-Itanium platform."

"We were pleased to host this meeting and delighted at the turnout by so many 
people from Gelato Federation organizations around the world," said Dick Lampman, 
senior vice president of research, HP, and director, HP Labs. "HP looks forward 
to continuing its work with Gelato members to create new software solutions for 
Linux on Itanium."

A major goal of the Gelato Federation is education, an area in which the May 
2005 meeting excelled. Focused on understanding Itanium-based systems to maximize 
performance, the event delivered an exceptional speaker line-up and technical 
program with nearly three dozen presentations. Some of the favorites included: 
performance profiling, NUMA scalability issues and locking techniques, optimizing 
scientific libraries for Itanium, NASA applications on the SGI® Altix®, and Itanium 
2 processor-related research at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. 
Attendees also learned more about the next-generation dual-core Intel Itanium 
processor, codenamed 'Montecito,' through a presentation and a hands-on demonstration 
where attendees were able to run their own software.

"The Gelato Federation is made up of people and organizations that are passionate 
about Itanium and the advancement of the architecture," said Mark Davis, senior 
principal engineer at Intel. "Intel is excited about the work that this group 
is doing to bolster Linux development on Itanium and making Itanium the leading 
platform for high-performance computing applications."

In addition to presenting, Gelato members--some of the world's top supercomputing 
centers, national labs, research centers, and universities--were able to highlight 
their current Linux-Itanium research during a poster session. Three dozen member 
institutions presented over 100 projects, which denoted a wide range of activities, 
including: kernel work from the University of New South Wales and the University 
of Waterloo; grid projects from the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande and 
Zhejiang University; compiler work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
and the Russian Academy of Sciences; and diverse scientific applications from 
the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo. 

Presentations and posters from the meeting can be found at
http://www.gelato.org/community/events.php#MAY2005.

Integral to the event was the open sharing of information and experiences, which 
spurred the beginning of several new projects and collaborative relationships. 
In attendance were many key members of the Linux-Itanium community, who profited 
from the vast knowledge pool and face-to-face interactions. Top Linux kernel 
and OS developers; Linux-Itanium application software developers and users; and 
Itanium compiler engineers, including a majority of Intel's team, were all present. 
Current senior Itanium architects and developers were able to confer with members 
of the original Itanium design team, Clemens Roothaan from the University of 
Chicago and Bill Worley of Secure64. Major Itanium authors David Mosberger, Stéphane 
Éranian, and John R. Harrison were on hand to discuss their work. In addition, 
the setting allowed influential corporate executives to converse with university 
researchers and major Itanium end users.

Beverly Bernard, SGI Linux product manager and Gelato liaison, explained, "SGI 
flagship server and visualization systems are now Linux OS-based and built entirely 
on the Itanium processor; therefore SGI welcomes the opportunity to combine its 
efforts with Gelato, Intel, and HP to encourage continued development of applications 
for Linux and Itanium 2. The recent Gelato conference was particularly successful 
in that it brought vendors and users together in a rich environment of shared 
ideas, projects, and enthusiasm for this powerful new computing platform."

With the tremendous amount of high-quality technical information delivered and 
critical mass of Linux-Itanium experts attending, Gelato's May 2005 meeting was 
a major success. At the end of 2-1/2 days of presentations, project updates, 
knowledge sharing, and brainstorming ideas for improving and expanding the platform, 
there was a palpable level of excitement as attendees were filled with a new 
vigor and determination to advance Linux on Itanium. The momentum will carry 
through to the next meeting planned for October 3-5, 2005, in Porto Alegre, Rio 
Grande do Sul, Brazil, to be hosted by the Pontifical Catholic University of 
Rio Grande do Sul. All interested parties are welcome to attend.

About Gelato
The Gelato Federation is the global research community dedicated to advancing 
the Linux-Itanium platform through collaborative relationships targeting real-world 
problems and solutions. Gelato members are suppliers and users of Linux-Itanium 
technology with a shared goal of producing open-source solutions for academic, 
government, and industrial HPC research. The Gelato portal (http://www.gelato.org) 
serves as the primary channel for Federation business and collaborations. Information 
about Gelato members' software and solutions are available through the portal, 
and the community is welcome to participate and contribute.

For more information, please contact:
Nan Holda
nan@gelato.org
217.265.0947

Intel and Itanium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries 
in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of 
Linus Torvalds in several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are 
the property of their respective owners.