CRAY RESEARCH PREVIEWS SOFTWARE FOR ENHANCED
DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING

Product Improves Performance of UNIX-based Computer
Networks

MONTREUX, Switzerland, March 30, 1993 -- World
supercomputer leader Cray Research, Eagan, Minn., today
announced key features of its new Network Queuing
Environment, a suite of software tools designed to make it
even easier for Cray Research supercomputer users to send
computer jobs from their workstations to high-performance
computers on today's UNIX-based networks.

The company previewed the product at the annual Cray User
Group meeting, held here this week, and said the software
is expected to increase user productivity and set a new
standard for distributed supercomputing.  Product
availability is slated for later this year, according to Irene
Qualters, vice president of software, Cray Research.

"Network Queuing Environment is another example of the
high-performance software tools Cray Research provides
that enable users to more effectively use their network
supercomputing resources," Qualters said.

Computer networks today vary from organization to
organization, but typically include a variety of
heterogenous computers, she said.   In distributed
computing, problems are parceled out to the most
appropriate resources on the network to solve a computer
problem.  For example, supercomputers are used for
ultra-fast computations, while workstations are used for
post-processing and visualization of supercomputer output.

With Network Queuing Environment software and high-speed
hardware connections, desktop workstation users can
more easily access the computer resources they need
to solve their problems, said Dan Ferber, distributed
job section leader, Cray Research software division.
With this new software environment, users don't
need to understand the actual computing resource
they are using or concern themselves with
computational science or computer programming when
submitting jobs, he said.  The software manages file
transfers, job queuing, and load balancing on the network,
allowing users to focus on the scientific and engineering
problems they need to solve.

"We wanted to bring users an effective set of tools that
allow them to submit a job to any one network resource or a
combination of many resources to complete that job in the
quickest timeframe," said Ferber.  "For example, if a user
sends a job with Network Queuing Environment software to
one resource and that resource is overloaded, the software
will intervene and send the job to a free resource on the
network for quicker turnaround."

The Network Queuing Environment will include two
components, Cray Research NQS and a set of Network
Queuing Tools that make it easier to distribute and monitor
workloads on networked UNIX systems.  The tools are:
Network Queuing Client, an easy-to-use interface for job
submission to NQS; File Transfer Agent, which queues
outbound and inbound file transfers over ftp; and Network
Load Balancer, which monitors jobs in queue and sends them
to the most appropriate resource on the network for
processing.

Cray Research NQS software is included in the UNICOS
operating system software.  It has long provided
supercomputing features not found in other NQS versions,
such as checkpoint/restart, tape and SSD storage support,
password encryption, enhanced status display support,
global limits, and a single administrator interface.  In the
most recent release of UNICOS, Cray Research NQS
introduced significant new features including fair share
scheduler support, guaranteed network output return using
FTA, and enhanced scheduling support for jobs needing
immediate execution.

According to Ferber, later this year Cray Research plans to
announce Cray Research NQS for SPARC and AIX platforms,
allowing enhanced distributed processing between Cray
Research systems and SUN and IBM RS/6000 systems,
respectively.

"This means that the high functionality of Cray Research's
version of NQS will be available for workstations operating
the Solaris and AIX operating system," he said.

Cray Research creates the most powerful, highest-quality
computational tools for solving the world's most
challenging scientific and industrial problems.

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