Intel’s Software and Solutions Group (SSG) has a SW engineering team located near Cologne, Germany with a long and distinguished track record in parallel and distributed computing topics. Its current portfolio includes tools for creating and optimizing high‑performance parallel applications on Intel Cluster platforms (Intel® MPI and Intel® Trace Analyzer/Collector products), and a framework for creating portable, middleware‑independent Grid applications (Intel’s Grid Programming Environment or GPE). Besides developing software components, the team enables Intel’s partners and customers to effectively use the latest technology in hardware, parallel tools and Grids. In their previous affiliation (with the HPC branch of Pallas GmbH), the key team members have participated in a long list of R&D projects in High Performance Computing and Grid research, including the highly successful Unicore‑based Grid projects.

For the SIMDAT project, Intel leverages the Grid experience of its Cologne team to create and maintain the technology for accessing and managing data repositories remotely across a Grid, and integrate it with the Basic Grid infrastructure components produced by the SIMDAT partner IT Innovation. Intel’s approach is based on a careful analysis of the state-of-the-art Grid systems in the Data area, followed by a detailed gap analysis against the functional and performance requirements formulated by the application activities. From this, Intel has proposed an initial technology base (OGSA‑DAI as developed by the University of Edinburgh), and turned this into a set of industrial‑strength data access components that meet the application partner’s requirements. As a technology champion, Intel consults application and technology partners in SIMDAT to ensure optimal use of the data access technology, and uses the feedback to continually improve the data access components.

Additionally Intel is engaged with the Grid related standards bodies (mainly with OGF) and transfers research and development results to its vast ecosystem of OEMs, ISVs and customers.

Intel website