Abstract:
John Plusquellic
Systems Engineering Supervisor
Millennium Pharmaceuticals
640 Memorial Dr.
Cambridge, MA 01239

Millennium Pharmaceuticals is a human genetics research company devoted to finding and identifying genes that cause novel human diseases. To aid us in this research we employee a vast array of computer based solutions, one of which is the NT platform. Our current NT system was initially purchased two years ago ,as a proof of concept environment. Due to its ease of use and user demand, our original test system is quickly being forced into a production environment. With such a rapid role change comes problems and questions. Such as: What are the scaling limitations of NT?, a fair amount of our developed application are UNIX based, is porting this code possible?, If so, what changes will have to be made? Should it be optimized for the NT platform or will porting be enough?, NT clustering seems to be gaining momentum, is it truth or hype?. I do not expect to have all of these questions answered, from attending one workshop; However, being able to interact with the experts in the field and other professionals is invaluable. I hope to take home some new insight into solving the challenges found with NT. I have been looking for this type of workshop for years, I'm thankful others saw the need as well.

John Plusquellic
Systems Engineering Supervisor
Millennium Pharmaceuticals