WALTHAM, Mass., Feb. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- "THE OPERATING
SYSTEM USED BY IBM'S WATSON SUPERCOMPUTER." In the context of TV
quiz show "Jeopardy!", this is the answer the host would give to
the contestants. The question the host would seek? "What is SUSE®
Linux Enterprise Server?"
Watson, a supercomputer developed by IBM, will test its trivia
skills on "Jeopardy!" in an upcoming competition against past
champions Ken Jennings and
Brad Rutter. The showdown will take
place in a two-day tournament airing on the syndicated program
between Feb. 14 and 16. Containing
more than 200 million digital pages of information and operating at
a speed of over 80 teraflops in its digital "brain," Watson uses a
combination of deep analytics and rapid processing speeds that can
interpret the types of "natural language" questions used in the
long-running game show.
IBM's DeepQA software, which runs on SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server 11, on 10 racks of IBM Power 750 servers, powers the
technology for those contestants who appear on "Jeopardy!" The
POWER7® platform is known for its ability to meet high-performance,
high-capacity and near-linear scaling. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
is the fastest operating system on IBM POWER7, based on recent SPEC
benchmarks, and thus a natural choice for IBM's DeepQA software
powering Watson.
Since 1993, SUSE Linux Enterprise engineers have made
significant contributions to the advancement and tuning of the
Linux kernel and key kernel-related performance technologies. With
advanced memory management, new processor support, unmatched
performance on systems with multicore processors, Native POSIX
Thread Library (NPTL) and advanced multipathing and I/O
capabilities, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the clear choice for
high-performance computing systems. It outperforms competitive
systems in performance and scalability for large-scale server
deployments, on industry standard blades and servers, mid-range
systems and on high-end mainframes.
"Watson's 'Jeopardy!' appearance is a remarkable event in the
history of Linux and a landmark accomplishment within the 20-year
technical partnership between IBM and Novell," said Markus Rex, senior vice president and general
manager of Open Platform Solutions at Novell. "Watson's ability to
compete head-to-head with human contestants showcases just how
powerful, sophisticated and versatile the SUSE Linux Enterprise
platform is. We very much look forward to seeing its capabilities
in action when the episodes air later this month."
Watson's "Jeopardy!" appearance serves as further validation of
the advantages of Linux* in high-performance computing
environments, as Linux has long been regarded as the operating
system of choice among the fastest and most complex environments in
the world. In the latest Top 500 list of the world's most powerful
supercomputers, 459 are running Linux and six of the top 10 systems
are based on SUSE Linux Enterprise or a derivative of it.
To learn more about SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for
high-performance computing, visit
http://www.novell.com/products/server/hpc.html. To learn more about
Novell and the IBM Watson supercomputer, visit
http://www.novell.com/ibm/watson. For a complete list of channels
and viewing times for Watson's "Jeopardy!" showdown, visit
http://www.jeopardy.com/showguide/whentowatch/.
About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), a leader in intelligent workload
management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage
computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing
environments. We help customers reduce the cost, complexity and
risk associated with their IT systems through our solutions for
identity and security, systems management, collaboration and
Linux-based operating platforms. With our infrastructure software
and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell integrates mixed IT
environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For
more information, visit www.novell.com.
Copyright © 2011 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.
Novell, the Novell logo, the N logo and SUSE are registered
trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other
countries. *All third-party trademarks are the property of
their respective owners.
SOURCE Novell