Ladies and Gentlemen,

Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, Institute of Computing Science of Poznan University of Technology and Microsoft invite on the 3rd edition of Microsoft Innovation Center Conference entitled "Modern Technologies closer to us" that is going to occur on April 16th 2009.

Conference topics concerned modern and emerging concepts intensively investigated by Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC): interoperability (interactions between systems based on different technologies), virtualization and high performance computing (HPC). Development, deployment and implementation of cutting-edge applications and technologies based on aforementioned concepts are the most important directions of MIC activities and research expansion defined in year 2009. Enabling interoperability between software as well as hardware products from different vendors has become more important than ever. Interoperability concept is extremely popular in all sectors of IT world. Thus, Innovation Center focus main stream of research on design of architecture facilitating integration of Microsoft's technologies, for example Windows based platform, with products of other vendors, for example Unix/Linux platforms. The vision of "software without borders" is becoming reality and will be knocking to customers doors. We should be aware of new possibilities as well as importance of this matter for end-users.

Next, equally important, topic of the conference was virtualization, technology which gives possibility of partitioning one physical server computer into multiple "virtual" servers, giving each the appearance of running on its own dedicated hardware. End-user (programmer, administrator) perceive such a virtual server as an independent machine with its own hard drive, operational memory or even DVD drive. Potential of this technology is enormous. Among its most important outcomes is reduction of IT infrastructure operational costs by improvement of hardware resources utilization. Virtualisation can be also applied in order to increase systems agility and availability. All these profits can be achieved by means of technology available in Windows Server operating system - said Dariusz Piotrowski, Director of Developer &Platform Group in Microsoft Poland. Thus, virtualization becomes increasingly popular especially in industry where maximization of operational cost savings is an important matter.

The latest product that has opened large scale computing market for Microsoft is HPC Server 2008. The first cluster installations running Microsoft's operating system have recently appeared on TOP500 list (list of the most powerful computers in the world). Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center as Microsoft Innovation Center has been admitted to prestigious Technology Adoption Program (TAP) that fosters functionality of next version of HPC Server 20xx. PSNC takes part in the program along with such renowned companies and vendors as BMW, IBM and Siemens.

The entire scope of aforementioned activities are combined together in a project of Pionier consortium (http://www.pionier.gov.pl) called Platon (Service Platform For Science - Stage I: shared services container), which is funded through EU Structural Funds within Innovative Economy Operational Programme - said Ph.D. Maciej Stroiński, Technical Director of Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center. Platon is large scale joint venture of universities and academic research centers from 21 cities linked together by PIONIER national research network. It is planned, within Platon project framework, to provide in those cities advanced services for science, including on campus computing facilities. Modern virtualization technologies and HPC Server system, probably in version 2010, will be crucial elements of created infrastructure.

Detailed information about Microsoft Innovation Center in Poznań along with conference materials is available on its official website: http://mic.psnc.pl/en.