LISLE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Univa, the data center optimization company, today announced that the principal engineers from the Sun/Oracle Grid Engine team, including Grid Engine founder and original project owner Fritz Ferstl, are joining Univa. The company will immediately offer superior engineering support for Grid Engine versions already installed and will publish a Univa version of Grid Engine before the end of Q1 2011. Univa will concentrate on improving Grid Engine for technical computing and HPC use cases in addition to promoting the continuity of the Grid Engine open source community.
As part of this announcement, Mr. Ferstl has been appointed Chief Technology Officer and will direct Univa’s technology strategy as well as lead the company’s growing EMEA business.
Grid Engine, a policy-driven workload and resource management system that automates workload distribution across a network of servers, is the most widely used system of its kind with over 4 million CPUs under management. The addition of Grid Engine technology and expertise directly supports Univa’s data center optimization strategy by bolstering its workload and resource optimization capabilities, which already include the leading desktop management product, Grid MP.
“The first step to data center optimization is effective sharing of systems and workload distribution, and now Univa provides the leading resource management system as a primary element in our optimization stack,” said Gary Tyreman, CEO of Univa. “Grid Engine is an area in which Univa has invested significant time and energy over the past 3 years, and we believe we are now best positioned to lead the pursuit of top HPC use cases and requirements that serve our most important customer sets. With this move, Grid Engine users gain a predictable and sustained future for Grid Engine that might not have been available otherwise.”
“Combining the Grid Engine and Univa technology offerings was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the new Univa EMEA team and I just couldn't miss,” said Ferstl. “Now we'll be able to interact with and serve users worldwide investigating and understanding their data center optimization needs and providing the most innovative and enterprise-strength solutions to meet those needs.”
Univa now offers the broadest and most innovative set of product capabilities for optimizing data center efficiency. Univa software continuously and dynamically optimizes an organization’s efficiency with respect to workload and resources, people and processes, and application and license usage. This unique approach helps organizations earn rapid ROI through faster time-to-results and by keeping larger costs under control.
“Univa can now claim the most comprehensive set of category-leading products,” added Tyreman. “We offer Grid Engine, the leading workload management solution; Grid MP, the leading desktop solution; and UniCloud, the leading dynamic cloud management software stack.”
“I'm very excited by Univa providing continuity and ongoing support for Grid Engine,” said Wolfgang Gentzsch, former CEO and President of Genias Software which originally developed the Grid Engine software acquired by Sun. “This is clearly a win-win-win situation: GE’s thousands of users now have access to enterprise-class support at Univa, Univa customers benefit from the extended capabilities now available for fully optimizing data center efficiency; and the GE open source community can rest assured that robust development will continue thanks to Univa’s commitment to the project.”
“Univa developing and supporting Grid Engine is welcome news for the GE community,” said Ian Foster, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. “This move by Univa brings with it a new competitive spirit and sense of innovation to a market that continuously benefits from pushing the envelope.”
“This move propels Univa into a lead position in both the data center optimization and workload management spaces,” said Steve Tuecke, co-founder of Univa and Deputy Director of the Computation Institute at University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. "We selected Grid Engine as a core part of Univa's software stack almost five years ago due to its market leading feature set, large user community and vibrant open source community, all backed by a fantastic engineering team. Now that key members of the Grid Engine team are part of Univa, it seems a no-brainer for Grid Engine users to go with Univa for ongoing GE technology and services, as well as the broader data center optimization stack Univa has built around GE."
For additional quotes/reactions from the user and technology community, visit: http://www.univa.com/about/quotes.php.
Grid Engine support is available immediately from Univa, and the Univa version of the product will be available by end of Q1 2011. For more information about Univa’s Grid Engine offering, including options for current Grid Engine users, visit http://www.univa.com/products/.
About Univa Corporation
Univa, the Data Center Optimization Company, is the leading provider of optimization and management software for traditional, dynamic and cloud data centers. Our award-winning products are used by Global 2500 companies to improve resource sharing, amplify the efficiency of people and processes, and increase application and license utilization. Univa offers the industry’s broadest, most innovative and integrated product set for managing shared, high-demand data center resources. From workload management to policy-driven provisioning across physical, virtual and cloud resources, only Univa provides a proven combination of enterprise-class capabilities, industry expertise, and community sponsorship. Univa is headquartered in Lisle, Illinois with offices worldwide.