High-Performance Computing: Bull Co-ordinates Major Project in the Fight Against Cancer

    PARIS, July 17 /EMWNews/ --



    - Bull NovaScale Supercomputer Delivers the Power Needed to Develop

More Precise and Effective Radiotherapy Techniques



    - Bull has Developed an Innovative Remote HPC Service Infrastructure

for Simulating Rays in Heterogeneous Environments



    Thanks to the power it delivers, Bull's NovaScale(R) supercomputer has

helped to support a major step forward in cancer treatment, by enabling the

extremely precise calculation of the dose of photons and electrons for

external radiotherapy treatments.



    The aim of the project is to improve the precision of radiotherapy

treatments, thus increasing recovery chances with reduced risks for the

patient. The selected solution is built on the Monte-Carlo type probability

models included in the calculation code algorithms. They take into account

all the physical effects of the irradiation and enable to increase the

precision of radiation doses. Together with the precision of current

imaging systems (scanners, MRI...), this innovation is an important step

forward in radiotherapy treatment.



    One of the first countries to benefit from the latest technological

advances, and take full advantage of supercomputing power in the form of

'on-demand service'



    In order to deliver the necessary computing power for the levels of

precision required by this new technique, Bull's High-Performance Computing

(HPC) Centers of Expertise have developed a pioneering supercomputer,

consisting of a cluster of NovaScale R422 servers equipped with Intel(R)

Xeon(R) processors capable of evolving to include up to 80 processing

cores.



    In addition, the implementation of a Service-Oriented Architecture

(SOA) infrastructure for the HPC architecture has enabled an 'on-demand

service' to be set up, giving all medical establishments involved in

anti-cancer treatments access to these new technologies. The SOA

infrastructure includes the JOnAS application generator, combined with the

Bonita workflow engine and a Web application. The system is secured using

data encryption, checking data integrity, a Virtual Private Network (VPN),

as well as by integrity verification and a directory of access rights.



    The success of the project has been the result of a close and exemplary

collaboration between Bull's Java Enterprise Middleware Center of Expertise

(JOnAS, Bonita and JCA connector), the Bull HPC Center for the HPC

infrastructure (batch processing and resources management), the Bull

Benchmarking Center (performance optimization), and Bull's Services teams

who developed the Web application.



    The chosen radiation physics codes originate from the University of

Barcelona, and have been parallelized and optimized by CEA LIST, which has

also been responsible for metrological validation on the project.



    The dose calculation service, developed by DOSISOFT, is in the course

of being validated by a number of organizations involved in cancer

treatment in France, including the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif

and the Curie Institute in Paris. Bull has acted as the co-coordinator of

this project, which has been partly funded by the French national network

for healthcare technologies, the RNTS (Reseau National des Technologies

pour la Sante). It is due to be fully operational and open to all

healthcare establishments in early 2009.

    About Bull, Architect of an Open World(TM)



    As one of the leading European IT companies, Bull delivers open,

flexible and secure information systems. The group helps public and private

sector customers transform their information systems, applying its know-how

and expertise in three main areas:



    - Capitalizing on its extensive mainframe experience, Bull designs and

produces robust, innovative and open servers, based on industry-standard

technologies;



    - Building on its alliances with leading ISVs and long-standing

involvement with Open Source, Bull develops and implements flexible and

interoperable application infrastructures which give business processes the

freedom to evolve;



    - Bringing together recognized expertise in end-to-end IT security,

Bull secures data and exchanges that are so critical in preserving

customers' business integrity.



    Bull has a particularly strong presence in the public, healthcare,

finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and defense sectors. Its

distribution network and business partners cover more than 60 countries

worldwide.



    For more information visit: http://www.bull.com



    Press contacts:



    Bull - Anne-Marie Jourdain - Tel: +33(0)1-30-80-32-52 -

[email protected]



    Financial Dynamics - Elodie Marchand / Tiphaine Bannelier - Tel :

+33(0)1-47-03-68-10 - [email protected] / [email protected]