Gelato Foundation announces new members

Dear Linux Weekly News,

The number of users of Linux on the Intel Itanium processor is rapidly growing.
Gelato-the international organization advancing Linux on Itanium-has recently 
welcomed several new members. Here is news about our newest members from Latin
America.

Let me know if you'd like to receive further information or arrange an
interview.

Blue Skies,
Nan

Nan Holda
GELATO Federation
Advancing Linux Itanium
tel: 217.265.0947
fax: 217.333.5579
www.gelato.org

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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (May 9, 2005)-In the last two weeks, Universidad de Chile and 
Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) became two of the newest members of the Gelato
Federation (http://www.gelato.org), an international organization composed of 
leading universities, supercomputing centers, national labs, and research institutes,
dedicated to advancing Linux on the Intel® Itanium® processor. Also announced 
at a visit to UBA on April 18 and a press conference held at Universidad de Chile
on April 21 were donations by HP, Gelato's founding sponsor, of HP Integrity 
servers to both universities.

"We're delighted to expand the Gelato Latin American family and look forward 
to dynamic partnerships promoting research on the Linux Itanium platform," stated
Lueny Morell, Director for University Relations in Latin America at HP.
 
Participants at Universidad de Chile's press conference included Bess Stephens,
Vice President for Corporate Philanthropy and Education at HP; Lueny Morell, 
Doctor Patricio Poblete, Director of the Engineering and Science College; Doctor
Dalia Finkelstein, Vice-Director for Management and External Projects at the 
Center for Mathematical Modeling, as well as other University and HP
officials.

During HP's visit to UBA on April 18, UBA Dean of Exact Sciences Doctor Pablo 
Jacovkis confirmed that “this distinction places UBA on a par with top universities
and world-renowned research groups, besides playing a key role in developing 
cutting-edge research in computing technology.”

Gelato is composed of 49 member institutions-to which Universidad de Chile and
UBA are the most recent additions from Latin America-for a total of five institutions
from the region, including: the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande 
do Sul and the Universidade Federal da Campina Grande, both from Brazil, and 
the Instituto Tecnologico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico. With members
from almost every continent on the globe, the work of the Federation centers 
around seven main focus areas: compilers, parallel file systems, performance, 
scalability, cluster and grid computing, Linux Itanium Standards, and Linux Itanium
tool integration. Within these areas, Gelato members are applying new technology
and solutions to specific applications in bioinformatics, high-energy physics,
and atmospheric sciences just to name a few. Research results are published to
the entire community through Gelato's website, http://www.gelato.org. 

Both Universidad de Chile and UBA were invited to participate in Gelato as sponsored
members by HP. The universities will contribute to the community through research
in software and applications for Linux on Itanium. The teams at both institutions
will undertake research projects with doctoral- and masters-level students in 
computer science, as well as with external collaborators.

At Universidad de Chile, Gelato-related activities will take place under the 
auspices of the Center for Mathematical Modeling (Centro de Modelamiento Matemático
- CMM), under the direction of Doctor Alejandro Jofré, Vice Director of the CMM
and Professor in the Computer Science Department. “The focus of our work will 
be to port certain computing-intensive applications to the Linux Itanium platform,”
explained Doctor Jofré, who emphasized that this recent computing platform is 
defining a new generation of high-performance computing.

At UBA, Gelato-related activities will be under the direction of Doctor Hugo 
Scolnik, Professor in the Computer Science Department, who noted that his team
has already undertaken a comparative study of different microprocessors versus
the Itanium chip; this work has proved to be of tremendous value to HP Labs
researchers.

HP Donation to Universidad de Chile

In addition to the membership announcement, Universidad de Chile also acknowledged
receipt of an Itanium server cluster donation from HP of HP Integrity rx1620 
and rx2620 servers valued at more than US $130,000 given in support of Universidad
de Chile's Gelato-related work. The donation is part of HP's overall commitment
to education and research and was donated in close collaboration with HP
Chile.

HP's donation will augment a larger Itanium computing cluster that the University
has acquired. Itanium is a series of high-performance, 64-bit microprocessors 
developed by Intel and HP. HP Integrity servers can handle more demanding workloads
than 32-bit processors. This cluster is the first of its kind in Chile, offering
new areas for investigation to the University's researchers. 

Doctor Alejandro Jofré, coordinator of Universidad de Chile's grid computing 
project, noted that “this cluster will provide a means for us to solve complex
modeling problems in the areas of transportation, environmental studies, genomics,
energy and telecommunications, among others.” This work is also relevant to numerous
other areas, and will be shared with the worldwide scientific community. Doctor
Jofré also explained that he hopes HP's donation “will be the beginning of a 
strong collaborative relationship with HP, which will hopefully grow over time
through joint research projects in areas that are central to Chile's
development.”

HP Donation to UBA

In March 2004, UBA received an Itanium server cluster donation of HP Integrity
rx2600 servers, valued at more than US $51,500, from HP's University Relations
division, with the support of HP Argentina, given to advance the Gelato-related
projects UBA will carry out as a member of Gelato.

"Besides the already-completed processor comparison study, UBA has already begun
development and parallel implementation of new algorithms for reconstruction 
of tomographic images," explained Doctor Scolnik.

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.


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