Celebrating Ten Years of PlugandPlay Cluster Computing

Dauger Research, Inc., celebrates ten years of "plug-and-play" cluster computing at Apple's WWDC. In 1998, a time when the Bondi-blue iMac was new, two UCLA physicists invented the Mac cluster. As a side project, they "reinvented" the cluster computer to better advance their scientific research. Today, reincarnated as the patented Pooch (Parallel OperatiOn and Control Heuristic application) and Pooch Pro clustering software (http://daugerresearch.com/pooch/), the technology combines cutting edge supercomputing components like Open MPI and leverages the famed ease-of-use of the Macintosh, producing a solution so easy to use that children have built clusters using it.

"After clustering Macs for ten years , ours is still the simplest way to get into clustering", said Dr. Dean Dauger, President of Dauger Research, Inc. "For a decade, we produce reliable, accessible, 'ad hoc', powerful Mac clusters that continue to inspire others in academia, research, and industry. When we built the first Mac cluster ten years ago, we knew we had something great, and it was clear others could benefit. 2008 is a great time to look back and see what sprung from the seed we planted. We thank all the wonderful people who helped us with this vision."

Winner of IEEE Cluster's "most innovative software" award, Pooch technology set numerous milestones over the years. An indispensable component of the first OS X cluster solution, it was the first to use Bonjour network discovery for clusters, incorporate drag-and-drop with clustering, support automated "grid"-behavior from GUI apps, launch Universal Applications on mixed clusters of Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs, and apply clustering to directly accelerate multipass H.264 HD video encoding. It supports multicore, all OS X executable types, mpich, MPI/Pro, mpich/gm, LAM/MPI, Java, and Open MPI. Finally, the technology supports running Wolfram Research's Mathematica like modern supercomputing (http://daugerresearch.com/pooch/mathematica/) and accelerate compression from mainstream video editing applications (http://daugerresearch.com/pooch/quicktime/).

On Wednesday evening of WWDC, Dauger Research presents a retrospective, "Ten Years of 'Plug-and-Play' Cluster Computing" (http://daugerresearch.com/vault/tenyears.shtml), in the Scientific Poster Session. See the website for accompanying materials as well as resources and tutorials on writing and running parallel code and full product details.

Profiled and honored on national television by the William Shatner-hosted "Keeping America Strong" show, Dauger Research, Inc. makes high-performance computation and visualization easy to use and accessible to users. Our award-winning team, to better accomplish our scientific goals, reinvented the cluster computer ten years ago, pioneering easy-to-use, high-performance clusters. Dauger Research, Inc., is committed to bridging the divides between the scientifically and technically complex and the mainstream.

Celebrating Ten Years of PlugandPlay Cluster Computing

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Celebrating Ten Years of PlugandPlay Cluster Computing

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