SGI Altix Server To Enable Transfer Radiology Images Around the Hospital

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., (May 12, 2006)—Saad Hospital, a leading multi-specialty hospital in Saudi Arabia, has acquired from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in March, an SGI® Altix® 350 high-performance computer (HPC) based on the Intel® Itanium® Processor Family, to handle the heavy load of radiology image transfers around the hospital.

The award-winning Altix HPC server family leverages industry-standard components to offer the most value in high-end computing. SGI Altix incorporates cutting-edge technology that allows fast access to all data in the system's memory directly and efficiently, without having to move data through I/O or networking bottlenecks.

"Being the premier hospital in Saudi Arabia, Saad Hospital has always been among the first to embrace new technological innovations," said Karim El Alami, Chief Information Officer at Saad Hospital. "Our requirements centered on a Picture Archive and Communication System (PACS) that could withstand the pressures of increased radiology image traffic. SGI servers are easily the best performing servers in the industry, and hence were an obvious choice. SGI's Altix 350 is highly resilient and provides 24/7 non-stop operation, which is critical to ensuring the efficacy of our hospital operations."

Gilbert Soufan, General Manager, SGI Middle East and North Africa, said, "Keeping with our reputation of setting the standards in high-performance computing, the system's advanced capabilities would allow Saad Hospital to transfer any number of radiology images, thereby facilitating the provisioning of faster and more efficient healthcare service to patients. The decision to deploy the SGI Altix will continue to reinforce Saad Hospital's reputation as one of the most advanced hospitals in the Arab world."

Scaling to 32 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors in a single platform, the Altix 350 leverages the powerful SGI® NUMAflex® global shared-memory architecture to derive maximum application over 6.4 gigabytes per second of sustained I/O bandwidth. "The Intel Itanium 2-Based solution offered to Saad Hospital by SGI is yet another example of our commitment to the healthcare industry in the region," said Samir Al-Schamma, Intel's General Manager for the Gulf Countries region. "More than 50 percent of Global 100 companies depend on Itanium architecture-based solutions to run their business-critical applications. We are happy to partner with SGI on this significant project and look forward to further cooperation with SGI in this field."

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SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc. (OTC: SGID), is a leader in high-performance computing. SGI helps customers solve their computing challenges, whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, providing technologies for homeland security and defense, enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, or helping enterprises manage large data. With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.

Silicon Graphics, SGI, Altix and the SGI logo are registered trademarks, and NUMAflex and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other country. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.