Platform Computing

Quality 0.50 · 3 views · Updated 2 months ago

Software company in Canada

title: "Platform Computing" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["defunct-software-companies-of-canada", "companies-established-in-1992", "ibm-acquisitions", "grid-computing"] description: "Software company in Canada" topic_path: "technology/computing" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_Computing" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Software company in Canada ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]

Field	Value
fate	Acquired by IBM
name	Platform Computing
logo	Platform Computer logo.gif
type	Private
foundation	Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1992)
key_people	Leadership team
location	Markham, Ontario, Canada
num_employees	530
industry	Cloud computing, High performance computing, Distributed computing, Grid computing, Computer software
products	Platform ISF, Platform LSF, Platform Symphony, Platform Cluster Manager, Platform Manager, Platform MPI
revenue	$71.6 million USD (2010)
homepage	www.platform.com
::

| fate = Acquired by IBM | name = Platform Computing | logo = Platform Computer logo.gif | type = Private | | foundation = Toronto, Ontario, Canada (1992) | key_people = Leadership team | location = Markham, Ontario, Canada | num_employees = 530 | industry = Cloud computing, High performance computing, Distributed computing, Grid computing, Computer software | products = Platform ISF, Platform LSF, Platform Symphony, Platform Cluster Manager, Platform Manager, Platform MPI | revenue = $71.6 million USD (2010) | homepage = www.platform.com Platform Computing was a privately held software company primarily known for its job scheduling product, Load Sharing Facility (LSF). It was founded in 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and headquartered in Markham, Ontario with 11 branch offices across the United States, Europe and Asia.

In January 2012, Platform Computing was acquired by IBM.

History

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/PlatformComputing.jpg" caption="Platform Headquarters in Canada."] ::

Platform Computing was founded by Songnian Zhou, Jingwen Wang, and Bing Wu in 1992. Its first product, LSF, was based on the Utopia research project at the University of Toronto. The LSF software was developed partially with funding from CANARIE (Canadian Advanced Network and Research for Industry and Education).

Platform's revenue was approximately $300,000 in 1993, and reached $12 million in 1997. Revenue grew by 34% (YoY) to US$46.2 million in 2001, US$50 million in 2003.

In 1999, the SiteAssure suite was announced by Platform to address website availability and monitoring market.

On October 29, 2007, Platform Computing acquired the Scali Manage business from Norway-based Scali AS. Scali was cluster management software. On August 1, 2008, Platform acquired the rest of the Scali business, taking on the industry-standard Message Passing Interface (MPI), Scali MPI, and rebranding it Platform MPI.

On June 22, 2009, Platform Computing announced its first software to serve the cloud computing space. Platform ISF (Infrastructure Sharing Facility) enables organizations to set up and manage private clouds, controlling both physical and virtual resources.

In August 2009, Platform acquired HP-MPI from Hewlett-Packard.

In January 2012, Platform Computing was acquired by IBM.

Open-source participation

Platform joined the Hadoop project in 2011, and is focused on enhancing the Hadoop Distributed File System
Platform Lava - based on Platform LSF, licensed under GPLv2. The Lava scheduler is part of Red Hat HPC. Discontinued in 2011.
OpenLava - successor to Platform Lava.
Platform FTA - File Transfer Agent for HPC clusters
Nagios Plug-ins
Community Scheduler Framework - a meta-scheduling framework

Memberships

Platform Computing is a member of the following organizations:

Standards

Platform products adopted the following standards:

DRMAA
Intel Cluster Ready
HPC Profile
JSDL
Open MPI
Project Kusu, the basis for the Platform Cluster Manager

References

"Platform Computing Inc. Corporate Facts".
"2011 Branham300 Online - Platform Computing Details".
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111207055026/http://www.platform.com/company/contact-us Contact]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120112053601/http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/36372.wss IBM Closes on Acquisition of Platform Computing]
"GridConnections". OGF.
"Utopia: A Load Sharing Facility for Large, Heterogeneous Distributed Computer Systems".
"Shaping the future: success stories from the CARARIE files". CANARIE.
"Platform Computing Inc. Company Profile". Yahoo Business.
Connor, Deni. (Nov 8, 1999). "the changing face of web site management".
(2008-10-02). "Platform Computing Acquires Scali Manage Business". Platform Computing.
(August 1, 2008). "Platform Computing Acquires Scali MPI Business". Platform Computing.
"Platform Computing announces private cloud management software".
(Jun 22, 2009). "Platform leaps from grids to clouds".
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090905133936/http://www.platform.com/press-releases/2009/platform-computing-acquires-mpi-product-from-hp Platform Computing Acquires MPI Product from HP]
"IBM Closes on Acquisition of Platform Computing".
[http://www.platform.com/press-releases/2011/PlatformAnnouncesCommercialSupportforApacheHDFS Platform Computing Announces Commercial Support for Apache Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)]
"Platform Lava".
"Red Hat HPC Solution".
[ftp://ftp.platform.com/pub/opensource/ platform opensource]{{dead link. (May 2025)
"Systems Management".
[http://grid1.jlu.edu.cn/csf http://grid1.jlu.edu.cn/csf] {{webarchive. link. (2011-07-07)
(2011). "Computing and Intelligent Systems".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::