Belgian Scientists to Stay Ahead of Changing Weather Conditions with Advanced SGI Technology

As the world
assesses a year that saw some of modern history's most catastrophic weather
events, meteorologists in Belgium will be using advanced supercomputing and
storage solutions from Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) to quickly predict ever-
changing weather conditions for the country's 10.3 million citizens.
Three Belgian research agencies, allied under the name "Space Pole,"
purchased a 56-processor SGI(R) Altix(R) 3700 supercomputer with 112GB of
globally shared memory and integrated with a 4TB SGI(R) InfiniteStorage TP900
solution. The Space Pole will run Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server, Ver.
9 on the new Altix system. The contract also includes 24-hour maintenance from
SGI Professional Services. The system was shipped in late September and
installation will be completed in October. The Space Pole plans to upgrade the
system and extend the service contract as new technologies become available.
The new Altix system will serve as a central compute server for the three
Belgian institutes of the Space Pole. The Belgian Institute for Space
Aeronomy, which studies the upper atmosphere, will use the Altix system for
instance for simulations of the Earth's magnetosphere and modeling of the
stratospheric ozone layer. The Royal Observatory of Belgium will use the
compute server for studying physics of the sun and for modeling planetary
interiors and stellar atmospheres. The Royal Meteorological Institute will
leverage the system for mathematical modeling and operational weather
forecasting calculations, in addition to identifying long-term climate trends
such as global warming.
The Space Pole selected the SGI Altix system after conducting performance
benchmarks against systems from IBM and Sun. "The SGI Altix system's
architecture delivered excellent results in the benchmarking process," said D.
Nevejans, head of IT investments, Space Pole. "We look forward to realizing
the productivity benefits that such a system is bound to offer our researchers
and meteorologists."
SGI solutions are particularly well suited to scientific applications, due
in large part to SGI's third-generation NUMAflex(TM) architecture. This unique
global shared-memory architecture enables researchers to hold entire data sets
in memory, allowing for faster and more interactive data analysis, and
resulting in more incisive conclusions.

SILICON GRAPHICS | The Source of Innovation and Discovery(TM)
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is a leader in high-performance
computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide technology
that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the
21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil
more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland
security and defense or enabling the transition from analog to digital
broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for
scientific, engineering and creative users. With offices worldwide, the
company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web
at http://www.sgi.com.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix, the SGI cube and the SGI logo are
registered trademarks, and The Source of Innovation, NUMAflex, and Discovery
is a trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other
countries worldwide. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in
several countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of
their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACT
Marla Robinson
marlar@sgi.com
256.773.2371

SGI PR HOTLINE
650.933.7777

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