Terra Soft Solutions

Infobox_Company
company_name = Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1999
key_people = Kai Staats, CEO
location = Loveland, Colorado
industry = Operating systems, Services, Software
products = Yellow Dog Linux
homepage = [http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com www.terrasoftsolutions.com]

Terra Soft Solutions is the Loveland, Colorado–based producer of Yellow Dog Linux, cluster construction tools, and bioinformatics software. The company’s clients include NASA, Boeing, California Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. Terra Soft provides software and services for the Power Architecture and Linux OS platform. As a Mercury, Apple, and Genesi value-added reseller, and IBM Business Partner, Terra Soft provides turnkey and build-to-order desktop workstations, servers, and High Performance Computing clusters. Terra Soft's Y-HPC 64-bit OS and cluster construction suite is widely accepted as a preferred platform for Xserve clusters. Terra Soft has made their Yellow Dog Linux distribution solely for Power Architecture, optimizing the distributions for technologies like for AltiVec, Cell and Hypervisor. Although its linux distributions are for Power Architecture, their Y-HPC(High Performance Computing) software and open source Y-Bio life science package are cross-architecture.

They were the first to support a variety of Apple computers, first to offer PowerPC Linux suite for parallel computing "Black Lab", first commercial Linux OS for Apple G4 and the only company allowed to sell Apple computers bundled with an operating system other than Apple's own. [ [http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/tss_firsts.shtml Terra Soft - Linux for Cell, PlayStation PS3, QS20, QS21, QS22, IBM System p, Mercury Cell, and Apple PowerPC ] ] When Apple abandoned PowerPC CPUs in favor of Intel Dual-Core chips, Terra Soft was able to concentrate on high-performance computing, while maintaining "hacker" credibility with Playstation 3 products.

Terra Soft's recent efforts include the launch of Y-Bio, a cross-architecture life sciences package; and movement on the world's first commercial, Linux Board Support Package for the Cell processor, in collaboration with Mercury Computer.

IBM, Mercury, and Sony, Cell-based systemsIn 2006, Terra Soft began work on the world’s first Cell-based supercomputer, in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The system is partly based on Sony PlayStation 3s. [ [http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=744 PS3 based super-computing cluster on Linux | Paul Murphy | ZDNet.com ] ] Yellow Dog Linux is the first Linux distribution to be certified for Cell and the PlayStation 3. [ [http://www.power.org/news/pr/view?item_key=9ae05a18ed848a29d3f0581fc93a72c5f94d3846 Power.org - Terra Soft Ships YDL v5.0 DVD Set for PLAYSTATION3 ] ]

Products

* Yellow Dog Linux – A Linux distribution optimized for Power Architecture hardware, like Apple's Power Mac, IBM's System p and Mercury's Cell based offerings and Sony's Play Station 3.
* Playstation 3s with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed.
* 6-node and 32-node Playstation 3 clusters, with seamless code migration to a Mercury Cell product upgrade path
* Mercury 56 core BladeCenter JS21 Bioinformatics Cluster
* Y-Bio – A Power Architecture optimized bio informatics suite, tailor made for DNA sequencing.
* Y-HPC – A construction and management suite for Linux clusters.
* OEM partner for IBM's System p and Mercury's Cell based hardware.

References

External links

* [http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/ Corporate web site]
* [http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=2280 Terra Soft Presents Full YDL & Hardware Solution for PPC – OSNews.com]
* [http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/34647.html Terra Soft CEO Kai Staats on Linux and the Mac – MacNewsWorld.com]
* [http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/967146.html Terra Soft to Build World's First Cell-Based Supercomputer – HPCwire.com]
* [http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/feature/20980 Terra Soft moves past Apple with first Cell-based supercomputing cluster – IT Manager's Journal.com]
* [http://kerneltrap.org/node/6175 Terra Soft Offers Xserve Bioinformatics Cluster – KernelTrap.org]
* [http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/45883.html Terra Soft Delivers Dual-PowerPC Cluster Node – LinuxInsider.com]
* [http://www.mc.com/mediacenter/pr/news_details.cfm?press_id=2005_11_14_1845_075754_151253pr.cfm Mercury Computer Systems and Terra Soft Solutions to Offer First Commercially Available Linux Support Package for Cell Processor-Based Products – Mercury Computer Systems.com]
* [http://www.ppcnerds.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=362 A letter from Terra Soft's CEO, "One year later ..." – ppcnerds.org]