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ClusterVision is a European hardware and software company that provides HPC (high performance computer) solutions and has its headquarters at the Netherlands. The company was co-founded by Alex Ninaber and Matthijs van Leeuwen in the year 2002 to provide solutions to deploy and manage high performance computing clusters based on commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. Ninaber and van Leeuwen started from a division in Compusys LTD in 1999 together with Dr Paul Calleja. The approach of building HPC clusters was introduced by Thomas Sterling and Donald Becker at NASA and was known as Beowulf computing. Ninaber and Calleja started experimenting with the concept of Beowulf computing at Birkbeck College in 1998 as part of the research group of Dame Julia Goodfellow.

HISTORY

The founders started the company in the domain of HPC systems as they had a background in the field of computer science, both academically and professionally. The HPC clusters were built using ready-made hardware with customized open-source software, and custom environments.

Universities and government research institutes were the early adopters for the technology. ClusterVision, along with three other companies (Compusys, Streamline Computing and OCF) is known to be a major integrator for the academic community. In 2003, ClusterVision developed its first supercomputer for Manchester University, UK. The Linux based supercomputer comprised of 70 processors that were based on the then new 64-bit AMD Opteron processors. The supercomputer was developed so that chemical reactions could be carried out. In 2004, ClusterVision launched its cluster management software which was commercially available in 2008 under the name of ClusterVisionOS v4.

In 2009, the company spun off its software into a separate entity named, Bright Computing. The software was renamed to Bright Cluster Manager, and it was headed by van Leeuwen as the CEO. Two years later, in 2016, Bill Wagner was appointed as the new CEO for the company as van Leeuwen. In 2018, van Leeuwen stepped down from his position and left the company.

Insolvency and acquisition:

In February 2019, ClusterVision was declared insolvent. The company (intellectual property and assets ) was acquired by the Taurus Group, a computer hardware distribution company that sells computer components used in Desktop PCs and Servers. ClusterVision still operates under the same name post acquisition.

CUSTOMERS

ClusterVision has its clients in all major continents with a presence in the EMEA region. Its clients are from the automotive industry, healthcare industry, education industry, oil and gas industry and life sciences industry.

Awards:

The Top500,  a list used to rank the top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world, was launched in the year 1993. The list follows a benchmarking approach to rank supercomputers based on their ability of solving linear equations, A x = b, known as the Linpack Benchmark. The rating is announced twice each year, in the month of June and November. Following the Linpack benchmark, it can be said that any supercomputer can enter the top 500 list of the most powerful computers if it is capable of solving linear equations making use of floating-point arithmetic units. Top500 is a measure to identify the fastest supercomputers in the world. It analyses data collected over the past 2 decades from the trends in the HPC systems, which is also effective in predicting the developments in the performance of these computers.

Since 2004, ClusterVision was listed with 17 different HPC clusters in the Top500 list. The table below shows a summary of the top 100 entries of ClusterVision for the given year. The table shows the cluster name, with its rank, the site at which it was installed and its Linpack Performance.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

ClusterVision develops hardware and software solutions for HPC computations. The hardware solutions are developed by combining compute, storage, and GPUs. Functional support and services are also given to make the cluster operational. The company specializes in the design, execution and support of large-scale storage and compute clusters.

TrinityX:

In 2013, ClusterVision started developing the cluster management software environment TrinityX. TrinityX is released under the GPL v2 license, having its source code available on GitHub. The software was initially based on OpenStack. Later it was replaced with a torrent-based approach for the distribution of OS images.

References