HEWLETT-PACKARD AND LINUX NetworX on Wednesday announced they will partner to strengthen each other's Linux-based clustering solutions by delivering lower priced supercomputers.

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Under the terms of the deal HP will offer Linux NetworX ClusterWorX as a cluster management tool for supercomputers. For its part, Linux NetworX will sell HP's Itanium 2-based servers running Linux. The systems will be targeted at those users who require 64-bit platforms for doing technical computing.

The deal does not prohibit Linix NetworX from continuing to sell its existing Linux-based Evolocity series.

Officials from both companies believe the agreement helps their respective company's individual strategies in that it allows users to mix and match a number of different products, something users in the high-performance computing market have come to expect.

"We think that making Linux cluster tools like ClusterWorX more widely available to the HPC community, makes it possible to further accelerate the adoption of Linux clusters. The reason being you no longer have to be an expert in Linux and clustering to take advantage of the technology," said Stephen Hill, president and CEO of Linux NetworX, based in Salt Lake City.

Each company has built TeraFlop Linux clusters that can carry out more than a trillion calculations a second. Officials from each company said they will now be able to deliver clustered systems that will cost significantly less to run and maintain.

Linux NetworX expects to ship the new servers sometime in early January. They will be based on HP's two-processor rx2600 and its four-processor rx5670.