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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rupert1 who wrote (73299)	12/6/1999 7:48:00 AM
From: Aitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Sanger Centre Invests $3.2m to Speed the Search for the Secret of Life. Munich, December 3, 1999?Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) announced today that the researchers that broke the code of chromosome 22 have invested $3.2 m in additional Compaq Alpha technology in order to prepare for their next major discovery. Moreover, the Sanger Centre, heralding its report in this week?s issue of the scientific journal Nature, added that without their existing clustered network of 250 Alpha systems running Compaq software this week?s triumph would not have been possible. ?Without Compaqïs Alpha technology and TRU64 UNIX software our efforts to analyse and decode chromosome 22 would not have been successful. Today, the information and biological revolutions are being merged in the life sciences business. We are stretching the boundaries of computational science, ? said Richard Durbin, Assistant Director at the Sanger Centre. ?From the start, the Sanger Centre architectural concept embraced Compaq workstations and server-based compute farms and system-independent storage. We required a scaleable system that had could run continually and handle faults without crashing or interrupting our calculations, ? said Phil Butcher, Head of Information Technology at the Sanger Centre. ?We wanted to be able to create loosely coupled, logical clusters to distribute the application load.? With the exponential growth of modern computing power, the Sanger Centre and its international collaborators have now decoded one-third of the 3 billion base pairs of DNA and will produce the final finished sequence by the year 2003. To handle the burgeoning quantities of data, Sanger built a storage architecture that is hierarchical and system-independent. ?We built one of the first storage area networks (SANs),? said Butcher. ?We wanted to make sure that the storage and computing elements were separate on the network so we can scale them both independently. Network storage allows us to add modular elements as needed.? Compaq StorageWorks RAID systems make up the bulk (6TB) of the disk storage, along with a 300GB Network Appliances RAID subsystems. ?Unlike the smaller RAID system, which is bounded and has single components, the Compaq StorageWorks systems are expandable and have dual heads, controllers, and power supplies, so there is no single point of failure,? Butcher added. Compaqïs technology is scaleable and flexible enough to be constantly upgraded to meet the Sanger Centreïs increasing need for more computing power. For instance, the mapping and sequencing of the Sanger Centre?s part of the Human Genome Project, which comprises one third of the entire map, currently utilises 3.5 terabytes of storage a year. It should be remembered that Chromosome 22 is one of the smallest human chromosomes so the storage required to create the entire map will be an order of magnitude greater. The next great task is to decode the remaining 2 billion base pairs of DNA that comprise the rest of the human genome and to map the other 22 human chromosomes. If you know the context of the genes, you can find out if there are particular regions of chromosomes associated with a disease. It also become possible to compare the whole genomes of different organisms. Gerard van de Aast, Vice President Enterprise Solutions & Services Group (ESSG), commented: ?Bioinformatics has made leaps forward because of advances in computing as much as by excellence in scientific techniques. Compaqïs Alpha technology is scalable, powerful and reliable, and it is the natural choice of scientists and corporations that need competitive cutting-edge technology. ?Compaq is proud to have played such a vital role in what has been hailed as the discovery of the century. We are even prouder to be chosen as the platform to analyse and decode the next set of data.? Editors note: the new purchase was for Compaq ES40 and DSIO Alpha Severs. Company Background Compaq Computer Corporation, a Fortune Global 100 company, is the second largest computer company in the world and the largest global supplier of computer systems. Compaq develops and markets hardware, software, solutions, and services, including industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, enterprise and network storage solutions, commercial desktop and portable products and consumer PCs. The company is an industry leader in environmentally friendly programmes and business practices. Compaq products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries through a network of authorised Compaq marketing partners. Customer support and information about Compaq and its products are available at compaq.com. # # # Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.