Microsoft just released Windows HPC Server 2008, with support for thousands of processors. A NYTimes article takes a closer look at Microsoft's ambitions in supercomputing, and current trends in the HPC field, where Microsoft has almost no current presence. Microsoft's strategy is probably a recognition that with the price of high-powered hardware decreasing, many new companies and organizations are finding application for high-powered systems, and they hope to be able to take a portion of that new business using people's familiarity with the Windows brand as a foot in the door.
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Member since:2006-01-06
Think High Priced Computing. What linux has done is to make the software side of clusters extremely affordable. Not to mention easy to manage.
My experience with Microsoft products in shoehorned clusters is a comedy of incompatibilities, patch distribution nightmares and getting bit by artificial licensing limitations. I personally don't like paying a company to cause me lots of headaches.
Member since:2006-01-12
Sigh take your anti-Microsoft glasses off and feel the sun for while. High Productivity Computing isn't new term, in fact it wasn't even invented by Microsoft. DARPA even has competition that tries to find High Productivity Computing Solution for goverment!
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-10-01
You address my remark about HPC definitions, but leave unanswered my question about fortran compilers and scalability. Where is the answer? What are they doing about these concerns, concerns that are far more real then the one about definitions?
That and every bit of literature I've seen referring to HPC calls it High Performance Computing. Except for after Microsoft hijacked the term. Prove me wrong.
Edited 2008-09-23 14:46 UTC
Member since:
2006-10-01
From what I know of HPC, most of the really good code comes in the form of fortran. What work has Windows HPC server done with the fotran compiler?
Also, I've talked with people using clusters. Some tried Windows, only to find that it did not scale nearly as well as Linux did. Even considering that many houses that will pay for Windows licenses, if Linux just plain scales better they aren't going to use Windows.
That, and the fact that Microsoft is trying to change HPC to mean "High Productivity Computing" just seems to reek of a marketing department that smells money.
Edited 2008-09-23 02:15 UTC