Trenton Cluster Whitepaper

Cutting Rack-Mounted Systems Down to Size

Cluster Computing In Space-Constrained Applications

by Jim Renehan, Director of Marketing & Business Development, Trenton Systems, Inc.

Today’s embedded computing applications are far more sophisticated than those of the recent past. Industries such as medical imaging, homeland security and military defense call for rackmount systems that can run a growing number of complex software applications. In many of these industries the reliable and timely processing of information can mean the difference between life and death. These industries also require equipment that can squeeze into tightly constrained spaces and—in some cases—meet low weight requirements. Providing the needed compute capability inside this space and weight envelope is a considerable challenge.

In the medical imaging field, applications vary from simple single slice x-ray machines to three-dimensional, multi-image slice CAT scan machines. Although these applications have widely differing compute requirements, they share a need for increased image clarity. This is driving a quest for higher-performance rackmount systems. At the same time, the overall size of the imaging machines is shrinking.

In the area of homeland security, cryptography analysis is a key element in understanding what the bad guys are planning. Cryptography analysis systems must process an extraordinary amount of incoming data from a wide variety of sources. These systems require advanced software that can sort out the incoming data in order to allow intelligence specialists to focus on the most important information. To meet these needs, rackmount systems must provide scalable performance in relatively small enclosures.

Surveillance aircraft represents a small slice of the overall military defense market, but they illustrate many of the challenges facing the rackmount system designer. Surveillance aircraft provide location information and near-real-time situational analysis—a critical role in today's military, where information is as essential as firepower. Fulfilling this mission requires an enormous amount of computational horsepower.

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 Cutting Rack-Mounted Systems Down to Size