Intel has released two additional toolsets aimed at making parallel and distributed processing easier.

Intel has released Intel^® Parallel Studio XE 2011 and Intel^® Cluster Studio 2011 for Linux and Windows. The most important components are arguably the latest C/C++ and Fortran compilers, but clearly what you think is important depends on what you rely on. The compilers can be used from within Visual Studio - a simple switch changes from Intel to Microsoft. Linux users can choose between the Intel and GCC compiler under Eclipse or from the command line.

The tools are bundled into three offerings and you can opt for a C/C+ version only. The original Parallel Studio released earlier in the year is still available. The XE version bundles with it additional tools and supports both  C++/C and Fortran on both Windows and Linux. The Cluster studio extends the parallel model to include distributed processing.

You can download a 30 day trial and if you are a teacher or open source developer you can request a free edition. The cost for a package without Fortran is around the $1000 mark.     

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