Pooch Adds New Brains and Beauty

“Plug and Play” Cluster Software Adds Queuing, Scheduling, and Sports
Updated Graphical User Interface

MACWORLD EXPO, San Francisco – January 6, 2004 – Dauger Research, Inc.,
delivers version 1.4 of Pooch, the Parallel OperatiOn and Control
Heuristic application. This version debuts a new graphically-based,
dynamic job queue and scheduling system taking advantage of Pooch’s
built-in heuristic functions and cluster diagnostics. It also sports an
updated graphical user interface taking advantage of features
introduced in Panther, Apple’s latest Mac OS X.

“The new Pooch adds supercomputing-level capabilities to a uniquely
easy-to-use parallel computing solution already recognized as
innovative”, said Dr. Dean Dauger, President of Dauger Research. “While
other solutions force users through complex configuration, fragility,
and arcane commands, Pooch, with the lowest barrier to entry, enables
its users to harness the power of parallel computing with ease. Pooch
revolutionizes how people build and use parallel computers.”

“With the Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X Panther, Apple has created powerful
solutions for the high performance computing market,” said Ron Okamoto,
Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “Leveraging
the power of the Macintosh platform, Pooch 1.4 delivers easy to use
software for numerically-intensive parallel computing.”

Pooch, deemed “most innovative” by IEEE Cluster, combines powerful,
numerically-intensive parallel-computing clusters with the famed
ease-of-use of the Macintosh. While blurring the distinction between
cluster and grid computing, Pooch is the only solution that merges a
modern graphical user interface with parallel computing. It provides
the user interface for the latest incarnation of AppleSeed, a UCLA
Physics project begun in 1998. For five years and counting, their
software is being used world-wide to transform Macintoshes into
easy-to-use, numerically-intensive parallel computers.

Version 1.4 is the latest in a series of updates that utilize the
latest technology. Pooch was the first to use Rendezvous to discover
nodes for computation. Pooch takes advantage of AppleScript and
multiprocessing in Mac OS X, utilizes logged out Mac OS X machines for
parallel computing, and supports automated grid behavior and cluster
access for other desktop applications.

Pooch is the easiest way to build and use a parallel computer. Created
with the belief that a parallel computer should serve its users, it
debuted with features others have yet to accomplish and
integrate. Pooch remains the only cluster or grid solution that
installs on a node in seconds. Pooch’s tolerance for variations in node
configuration and execution environments is unparalleled. And Pooch
continues combining computational resources over the Internet with a
mouse click.

Pooch has supported Message-Passing Interface (MPI) since day
one. Today it supports three different MPI implementations to take
advantage of parallel computing within boxes and across boxes
simultaneously. A suite of utilities designed for remote, command-line
installation and access accompanies every Pooch shipped.

Updates of Pooch to version 1.4 are shipping to users with active
subscriptions.

Pooch v1.4 is available for US$175 for the first compute node then
US$125 for each node thereafter. Special academic pricing is listed on
the web site.

Users may order Pooch and other available software using the forms on
our web site or online through the Dauger Research Store:
http://daugerresearch.com/store/

The Pooch web site recently debuted three new tutorials on writing
parallel code. Users can download GUI and command-line installers
containing a trial Pooch, sample parallel applications and source code,
a Pooch Software Development Kit, and full documentation. With a
discussion mailing list devoted to parallel computing and updated
information about designing, compiling, and running code in parallel,
the Pooch site makes it easier than ever to write, develop, and run
your own parallel code today.

Pooch requires networked Macintoshes and/or Xserve’s running Mac OS 9
with CarbonLib 1.2 or later, Mac OS X 10.2 or later, and/or Mac OS X
Server 10.2 or later with 4 MB of available RAM and 2 MB of disk space.

We encourage you to revisit the Pooch web site at:
http://daugerresearch.com/pooch/

Dauger Research, Inc., was incorporated and founded by Dr. Dean E.
Dauger. Dr. Dauger is the award-winning author of Atom in a Box and
Fresnel Diffraction Explorer and has co-authored the award-winning
Kai’s Power Tools software from 1992 to 1994. After completing his Ph.
D. in physics, he founded Dauger Research, Inc., to bridge the divides
between the scientifically and technically complex and the mainstream
by making high-performance computation and visualization easy to use
and accessible to users.