Rogue Wave Parallel Computing Solution Used for Air Force Space Command Project

Lockheed Martin Uses Rogue Wave(R) Hydra to Migrate Air Force to Multi-Core Cluster, to Deliver World-Record Throughput and to Run at a Fraction of the Cost


BOULDER, CO--(Marketwire - September 9, 2008) - Rogue Wave Software, Inc., the leader in enterprise class C++ components and infrastructure, has teamed with other commercial companies and government agencies to tackle a challenging computing issue for the Air Force Space Command Project in a way that has turned the notion of high performance computing on its ear.

As a part of a challenging risk reduction prototype effort, Rogue Wave is working with one of the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC), the MITRE Corporation. Rogue Wave and MITRE are demonstrating that functionality that has required a large mainframe environment due to the complexities of the processes can now be managed with an Intel® Xeon® processor-based server environment and the right software. The challenge with moving from the mainframe to a network of smaller, less expensive hardware is that the smaller servers get much of their computing power from "multi-core" chips, which the legacy software was not architected to leverage.

The prime integration contractor for the Air Force's Integrated Space Command & Control program, Lockheed Martin, is working with the FFRDC and using Rogue Wave® Hydra to help simplify the migration to the Intel multi-core servers. Lockheed Martin will migrate this prototype system to an operational capability for Air Force Space Command in the very near future.

More specifically, Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) needed to move an existing space algorithmic application to a new architecture that could support a massive computational workload representing a large number of observations that included differential corrections. In fact, the specified growth requirement for transactions per second for this project exceeded the current world record for centralized database input/output. As a result, the new architecture needed to address millions of independent processes, concurrently, with maximum throughput and scalability, by leveraging newer multi-core hardware which can readily divide the problem across processors to achieve quicker results.

Using Rogue Wave Hydra, the combined commercial and government team was able to migrate away from a large and expensive mainframe environment to the Intel-based hardware cluster running multi-core processors. As a result, the team has deployed a highly scalable solution that has greatly reduced the amount of work its developers need to perform, allowing them to concentrate more on enhancing the functionality.

Considering the size, scale and speed of the solution, the most significant benefit may be the cost to build and maintain it. "The entire solution, including hardware and software, was a tenth the cost of running it on the old mainframe system for just one year, and the old system struggled to keep up with the load," said a senior U.S. government team member.

"This project is a milestone in achieving price/performance advancements. But it also demonstrates the potential in migrating existing solutions to a multi-core architecture," said Tom Gaunt, senior vice president worldwide sales and marketing at Rogue Wave. "Any dynamic enterprise facing increased performance requirements can extend the value of their existing C++ investments if they use the right parallel computing solution."

About the Rogue Wave Hydra Suite

The Rogue Wave® Hydra Suite enables development organizations to build and deploy high performance applications that are fully optimized for multi-core chip architectures and parallel computing. Only Hydra provides a single integrated infrastructure for scaling distributed business applications that were not designed to support multiple threads. Hydra enables parallel processing in both legacy and service-oriented environments without the need to recode to support multi-core systems. The Hydra Suite consists of integrated components that work together in an efficient service grid. The Rogue Wave® Hydra Suite delivers the latest Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Object (SDO) standards along with C++ Web Services based on the well-established SOAP and WSDL standards. For more information about the Rogue Wave Hydra Suite, go to http://www.roguewave.com/products/hydra/.

About MITRE

The MITRE Corporation is a not-for-profit organization chartered to work in the public interest. As a national resource, it applies its expertise in systems engineering, information technology, operational concepts, and enterprise modernization to address its sponsors' critical needs.

MITRE manages three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs): one for the Department of Defense (known as the DoD Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence FFRDC), one for the Federal Aviation Administration (the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development), and one for the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the Center for Enterprise Modernization).

About Rogue Wave

Rogue Wave Software, Inc. is the leading provider of enterprise class C++ components and infrastructure that enable organizations to build and deploy high performance applications. Only Rogue Wave provides the most complete C++ technology stack including C++ components, UI components, run-time infrastructure, and services. Today, thousands of organizations worldwide have chosen Rogue Wave. For more information, visit www.roguewave.com.

Rogue Wave is a registered trademark of Rogue Wave Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and product names mentioned may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

Contact Information: Media Relations Contact: Suzanne Miller Reidy Communications (415) 573-0710