Fujitsu Begins Operation of Japan-U.S. Grid-based Large-Scale R&D Environment

Tokyo, April 08, 2005

Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc. (FLA) today announced the establishment and commencement of operations of a grid-based large-scale computing research environment that enables more efficient mutual use of computing resources at Fujitsu R&D facilities in Japan and the U.S. In conjunction with the inauguration of the new environment, the two companies augmented the computer resources for the grid, upgrading the simulation environment currently available to Fujitsu for in-house use by about three-fold, to over 2,000 nodes.

Background

In February 2003, Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd. constructed a simulation environment for their in-house designers utilizing the CyberGrip* middleware developed by Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd. Currently, the two companies are making effective use of this environment to reduce development time and number of steps required, for such fields as parameter development for mobile communication systems, development of algorithms for image processing, and large-scaled integrated circuit (LSI) test pattern verification for mission-critical enterprise servers (PRIMEQUEST).

New Developments

Fujitsu established and commenced operations of a grid-based large-scale computing research environment to enable more efficient mutual use of computing resources at Fujitsu R&D facilities in Japan and the U.S.

For the new environment, Fujitsu Laboratories has increased the previous 230 units in the simulation environment in Japan to 1,500 units, and 54 nodes have been added to the grid simulation environment in the U.S. Thus, more than 2,000 nodes will be available to Fujitsu for in-house use in the new environment, or about three times as many as the present 700 nodes.

Reducing network load and making efficient use of computing resources were major goals behind creation of the new grid simulation environment. This was accomplished by making job caching more efficient and optimizing allocation of computer resources to match job execution time.

In addition to further strengthening computer resources in Japan and the U.S., Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd. and Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc. intend to expand the new grid simulation environment to Europe and other Fujitsu-related companies so as to create a global large-scale research environment.

Future Developments

In addition to further strengthening computing resources in Japan and the U.S., Fujitsu plans to further expand its grid simulation environment and establish a global large-scale R&D environment to include some Fujitsu group companies/affiliates based in Europe.

*CyberGrip: Grid middleware developed by Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd., which the grid middleware known as Systemwalker CyberGRIP from Fujitsu Limited is based on.