21 

2002 

E Business Suite with an average response time of 1.199 seconds. ..... A month later, the 32 way 

IBM

 eServer p690 server sets a new transaction processing record, handling 403,255 transactions 

per minute in the 

TPC

 C benchmark (compared to 389,434 processed by a competing Hewlett 

Packard 9000 enterprise server, while using only half the number of processors). ..... In May, the 

U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction select a massive 

IBM

 supercomputer that 

when fully deployed will be about four times faster than the most powerful supercomputer in the 

world. The supercomputer will be delivered in stages, beginning in 2002. The first phase    a 

cluster of 44 

IBM

 eServer p690 servers supported by 42 terabytes of 

IBM

 TotalStorage 

FAStT500 Storage Server disk storage    will have a peak speed of 7.3 teraflops (7.3 trillion 

calculations per second). 

IBM

 will expand the system to reach a peak speed well in  

excess of 100 teraflops by 2009. ..... In June, 

IBM

 reports that it has shipped 1,000 

IBM

 eServer 

p690 systems in less than six months of system availability, marking a key milestone in one of 

the most successful rollouts in the server industry. (The 1,000th p690 is delivered to The Spiegel 

Group, a specialty retailer, to help power the Marketmax merchandising suite of software and 

consolidate the workload of 15 non 

IBM

 servers.) ..... Also in June, the High Performance 

Computing Center for North Germany selects the 

IBM

 eServer p690 as the clustered technology 

to support its supercomputing infrastructure. The 

IBM

 supercomputer, delivering four trillion 

calculations per second, will form the basis of the Center's grid infrastructure, providing all 

universities and research institutes within Germany's six Northern Federal states with accurate 

analysis and mathematical models. ..... The same month, the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office 

acquires a p690 based supercomputer, named Blue Ocean, to perform basic research in the 

development of a practical vaccine for malaria and other infectious diseases. Processing over six 

trillion calculations a second, the supercomputer will also assemble the world's most detailed 

model of ocean waves, currents and temperatures. ..... Also in June, the company rolls out the 

IBM

 eServer p630 that offers 84 percent greater performance than Sun's V480. (

IBM

 reports in 

December that it has begun shipping the p630 to customers.) ..... General Motors in August 

selects a supercomputing infrastructure based on 

IBM

's pSeries 690 server to power GM's 

vehicle design applications. ..... In November, 

IBM

 announces the eServer p650, the world's 

most powerful eight way 

UNIX

 server. The p650 is the first server to include 

IBM

's newest 64 

bit microprocessor, POWER4+, and it brings to the midrange the blazing performance and  

autonomic computing capabilities of the groundbreaking 

IBM

 eServer p690. ..... Also in 

November, 

IBM

 debuts the 

IBM

 eServer p655, an ultra dense 

UNIX

 server targeted at the high 

performance computing market that is capable of reaching half a trillion operations per second in 

a single frame in peak processing power.  

The U.S. Department of Energy (

DOE

) awards a contract to 

IBM

 in November to build the two 

fastest supercomputers in the world with a combined processing power of up to 467 trillion 

calculations per second, exceeding the combined power of the world's 500 fastest 

supercomputers. The first system, called 

ASCI

 Purple    will provide 

DOE

  with the first 

supercomputer capable of up to 100 teraflops; the second supercomputer, a research machine 

called Blue Gene/L, will have a performance of up to 367 teraflops with 130,000 processors 

running Linux.  

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