Sonnet Suites: Now Supporting Windows 7
Shawn Carpenter, VP Marketing & Sales
Over the past year, many of you have been asking us for recommendations for new computing hardware. Since Sonnet’s new Desktop Solver (DTS) and High Performance Solver (HPS) engines now support parallel processing on multi-core Intel and AMD processors, many of you have been considering new hardware to better leverage the performance improvements possible with our solvers. (Benchmark examples comparing performance on a variety of circuits are available here, and compare performance of the Release 11 solver engine to the Release 12 Desktop Solver and High Performance Solver engines.)
Most PC and workstation suppliers are now recommending Windows 7 for customers who prefer to use the Microsoft operating system. Windows 7 does appear to be a more user-friendly environment than Windows Vista, and also appears to be more efficient in how much memory is tied up by the underlying operating system (OS), leaving more of the RAM resources on your PC available to you for memory-intensive tasks. For these reasons (and more), Windows 7 might prove to be a better option for new PC/workstation buyers than Windows Vista.
We are pleased to announce that the Sonnet Suites Version 12.56 is tested and certified for support under the Windows 7 Operating System. If you are currently using any of the Sonnet Suites under Version 12.52, 12.54 or previous versions and you are thinking about upgrading to a Windows 7 operating system, we urge you to download and install this new service version.
As computing hardware continues to evolve, the OS developers like Microsoft, RedHat, SuSE, and others continue to evolve their software so that their customers are able to fully leverage the latest hardware and chipsets. Earlier operating systems might not run on the latest processors. Or if they do run, they may be quite inefficient. As the OS developers work to stay in step with the hardware developers, software vendors like Sonnet work to stay in step with both. We want our software to deliver the best possible performance to our customers.
Computer OS compatibility is an important consideration for any software tool you install. If the vendor doesn’t support an OS, that means they haven’t tested their software on that OS. And if you install software on an OS for which it isn’t certified, you leave yourself vulnerable to potential problems that can leave you unable to use the software. Or worse, could result in runtime issues that lead to inaccurate results that you might not find until after you have completed your design!
This is part of the value that your Sonnet software maintenance service contract provides to you. In addition to the great features and enhancements we add to each release, we also work to ensure that you are able to take Sonnet with you as you migrate to newer hardware and OS versions. When significant new OS versions are available, our software development team makes the necessary enhancements to our software to ensure compatibility and efficiency. And we finish that process with extensive regression testing to ensure stability on your PC.
Sonnet has extensively regression-tested Version 12.56 on Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit versions) against a test database consisting of over 3,000 test circuits, each one stressing a different aspect of our code. We require that the software yields 100% correct results on every circuit, for both Intel and AMD hardware platforms for every OS we support. It’s a time-intensive process, but it’s worth it to catch and correct potential problems before the software ever makes its way to your desktop.
If you are already have a license for Release 12 (any Version 12.xx), you do not need a new license for this upgrade—your existing license will work in this new version. All you need to do is download and install this new version. If you are using a network license, you do not need to upgrade your FLEXlm license manager system. As long as your license manager system is any Version 12 installation, you may use it to serve licenses to network clients with Version 12.56 on them. If you are upgrading from Release 11 or earlier, you will need a new license from Sonnet.
The download information details are available from your Sonnet account manager or representative. If you don’t know your account manager or representative, please contact us at info@sonnetsoftware.com and we will be happy to put them in touch with you.
