This hardware and software combination is the first of its kind for the financial services and insurance industry.

Financial services and insurance firms have been the leading adopters of computing grids to run complex portfolio analysis, capital reserve, risk assessment, and actuarial models. By coupling DataSynapse's GridServer software with ClearCube's award-winning PC Blade platform, enterprises now have a grid-computing solution that delivers increased performance, efficiency and scalability.

DataSynapse is the leading provider of virtual application infrastructure software in the financial services sector. The DataSynapse GridServer software virtualises and distributes application services and executes them in a guaranteed, scalable manner. By creating a virtualised environment that matches demand (user/application service requests) and supply (available system and data resources), GridServer provides an "on demand" environment that dramatically improves application performance, resiliency and utilisation of resources.

ClearCube is the leading provider of PC Blade computing solutions in the financial services sector. Investment banks, hedge funds, retail banks and insurance companies already use ClearCube PC Blades and management software to deliver secured, high-availability computing to end-users while cutting support costs by more than 40 per cent.

ClearCube's blades are an ideal grid-computing platform for several reasons. First, PC Blades provide the best price/performance/density metrics because they leverage the latest Intel Pentium 4 and Xeon blades in a dense form factor. Secondly, ClearCube PC Blades provide for greater flexibility because they can be dual-used (end-user computing by day/grid-computing by night). Third, ClearCube PC Blades enable the enterprise to easily scale up (or down) in smaller increments so that large, up-front infrastructure investments are not required. Finally, since the entire infrastructure is in a secured, controlled environment, management of the grid is simplified and network latency is reduced.

With the combination of the DataSynapse software and ClearCube's PC Blades, financial services firms have an ideal platform for performing real-time analyses that drive improved business decisions. This is of vital importance for users who conduct risk analysis, portfolio management and insurance actuarial models.

"By partnering with DataSynapse, we are able to deliver a grid-computing environment that is unmatched in the industry in terms of flexibility, scalability and price," said Carl Boisvert, president and CEO of ClearCube Technology. "ClearCube PC Blades deliver one centralised secure computing platform that can be used for both end-user workstations and a grid-computing environment."

"This partnership creates an agile solution for our joint financial services customers," said Peter Lee, CEO of DataSynapse. "The ClearCube offering provides a unique approach to leveraging computing resources as both a workstation and a grid. Combining the flexibility of GridServer with ClearCube PC Blades creates a simple but powerful tool for financial services professionals."