Convey Computer Delivers Value with FlexNet Producer Suite

In an increasingly virtualized world, IP means everything. Today high-tech enterprises have to rigorously protect their IP if they are going to realize optimized returns on their R&D investments. At the same time, they have to be able to quickly, flexibly and cost-effectively deliver that IP to their customers because, ultimately, that's how they realize revenue and build their customer base.

Convey Computer is a classic example of such an enterprise. Convey offers a powerful and unique solution for customers running compute-intensive applications ranging from bio-informatics to complex financial analyses. The solution is based on hybrid-core servers that combine commodity x86 processors with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), integrated circuits that allow the hardware to be reconfigured "on the fly" as the system executes applications. When a Convey server's FPGA is specifically configured to run the core processes of a customer's compute intensive application that application can run literally hundreds of times faster than it does on multiple commodity processors running multiple virtual machines. As a result, the customer gets vastly superior performance without having to buy and manage large clusters of commodity servers. "More than 90 percent of the work done by a complex modeling application typically consists of a few specialized routines that can run far, far faster on hardware that is tailored specifically to execute those routines," says Bob Masson, Convey's marketing director. "By putting FPGA technology in the hands of customers running these types of applications, we are radically transforming the economics of high-performance computing."

Licensing as protection and business enablement
FlexNet Publisher licensing technology supports Convey's IP-centric business model by providing exactly the kind of granular entitlement controls it needs to ensure that customers only utilize authorized IP. FlexNet Publisher makes it easy for Convey developers to segment software and FPGA "personality" entitlements by simply associating a piece of code, such as a comment line, with a specific entitlement. This minimizes the amount of work required to define each entitlement, while eliminating any requirement to modify the code itself.

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