IT Professional
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 provides a productive, cost-effective, and high-performance computing (HPC) solution that runs on x64-bit hardware. Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 can be deployed, managed, and extended using familiar tools and technologies. Get up to speed quickly with Microsoft HPC Server 2008 R2 with these videos, white papers, and presentations.
Videos
-
A high level synopsis of Microsoft's Technical Computing offerings is presented by Ryan Waite, General Manager for High Performance Computing. The sheer size of generated data is a key driver in today's computational ecosphere. By the end of 2010, over 1.2 zetabyte of data will have ...
Read more »
-
Kathy Palmer, Lead Program Manager of the HPC Team, presents the management and monitoring enhancements released with R2. The notion of personal supercomputing is a core operational paradigm that is rapidly evolving in the numerical computing ecosphere. Various visualization aids, such ...
Read more »
-
Part Two explores cluster management and demonstrates how major administrative tasks are performed from a single integrated console: Configuration & Deployment, Monitoring, Node Management, Job Management, Reporting, and Diagnostics.
Read more »
-
Rae Wang, Senior Program Manager on the Windows HPC Team enumerates the diagnostics and reporting features available in Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. Microsoft designed comprehensive diagnostics to assist with granular troubleshooting, empowering administrators, ISVs, and IHVs to address ...
Read more »
-
Greg Burgess, Principal Development Manager for the HPC team, describes the HPC job scheduler. Job lifecycle is described according to three phases, Admission (jobs enter the scheduler), Allocation (scheduler makes decisions about job placement), and Activation (scheduler starts and controls ...
Read more »
-
Matt Blythe, Product Manager with the Microsoft Technical Computing team, offers an introduction to Dual-Boot "Hybrid" Clusters that allow Windows HPC and Linux HPC to exist on the same hardware. A key advantage of this approach is simplified integration into existing Linux-centric ...
Read more »
Documents
-
Learn about the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite, and discover how it provides a comprehensive, cost-effective solution for harnessing the power of high performance computing. This datasheet outlines the ease of deployment, the powerful monitoring and scheduling tools, and the enhanced ...
Read more »
-
Questions about licensing, requirements, pricing, migration, and backwards compatibility for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 are all answered here.
Read more »
-
Existing users of Microsoft HPC solutions will find that Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 includes many new and enhanced features. This article details many of the new additions, including job scheduling, SOA scheduling and runtime, and HPC Services for Microsoft Excel 2010.
Read more »
-
New users and experienced IT professionals alike will benefit from this step-by-step guide to deploying Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. Tasks including preparing your environment, configuration, and adding nodes are all covered, in addition to advanced topics such as failover clustering.
Read more »
-
This TechNet library includes all the information you need to evaluate, deploy, and administer Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. Security settings, cluster management, HPC Services for Excel, and other topics are covered. Common tasks including job submission, upgrades, backups, adding ...
Read more »
-
This in-depth article covers all common aspects of deploying Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, including head node deployment, configuration, adding nodes, and running test jobs. Advanced topics such as using PowerShell with your cluster and node templates are also covered.
Read more »
-
This document walks IT professionals through upgrading an existing Windows HPC cluster to Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. System equirements, in-place upgrades, and troubleshooting are all covered.
Read more »
-
One of the new features in Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 is the ability to add Windows 7 workstations as additional nodes for the cluster, giving you the ability to better use the hardware in your environment. These workstation nodes can be available based on a schedule (for example ...
Read more »
-
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 allows you to use HPC databases on remote servers running Microsoft SQL Server, without having to serve them from the head node of your cluster. This step-by-step guide shows you how to take advantage of remote databases.
Read more »
-
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 provides a variety of detailed charts and reports for administrators to monitor HPC clusters, but custom reports can also be created. This guide shows how to create custom charts and reports from job, node, and performance data.
Read more »
-
Reliability is important in any cluster setup, and Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 provides many diagnostics to help administrators monitor and evaluate their clusters. In addition to the built-in tests, custom diagnostics can be created, allowing administrators to test custom hardware ...
Read more »
-
Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 can use iSCSI storage arrays, allowing compute nodes to boot over the network without requiring local hard disks. This guide shows how you can set up iSCSI boot nodes for your cluster.
Read more »
-
Reinstalling HPC Pack 2008 R2 can cause databases and configuration information to be lost. This article guides you through doing the reinstallation safely, presevering your data.
Read more »
-
Cluster availability is a primary concern for many administrators; every outage, scheduled or unscheduled, results in lost productivity for your organization. By using a process called failover, clusters can be set up so that if the head node of the cluster becomes unavailable for ...
Read more »
-
Failover clustering can be used for clusters running applications based on service-oriented architecture (SOA). By using multiple servers working together, an outage on a single machine will not keep the HPC cluster from being available; jobs can continue to run and new jobs can be ...
Read more »
-
This step-by-step guide details how to upgrade an existing Microsoft HPC cluster using failover to Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, including importing configuration data and testing the head node fails over as expected.
Read more »
-
HPC Services for Excel can speed up workbooks and user-defined functions (UDFs) by offloading calculations from a workstation to an HPC cluster, increasing productivity and allowing larger data sets to be used. Learn how HPC Services for Excel enable Excel workbooks to run in parallel ...
Read more »
-
Learn about advanced topics for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 administration, including deploying computes nodes with pre-created computer object in Active Directory, creating DHCP Reservations for nodes, and configuring proxy settings for nodes.
Read more »
-
This guide provides detailed instructions for deploying InfiniBand device drivers with NetworkDirect support on your cluster, including configuring the head node, creating node templates, and testing the application network.
Read more »
-
System integrators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and enterprise system administrators can use the Advanced Installation Kit (AIK) to preconfigure a Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 high performance computing cluster. This guide shows you how.
Read more »
-
Cluster computing can be highly effective at increasing the productivity of both applications and the organizations using them; when combined with the processing power of doing general purpose computations on GPU (GPGPU), the potential productivity benefits of HPC increase even more ...
Read more »
-
This book uses the guiding principle of assuming no prior HPC knowledge and uses examples to guide the readers to learn how to use, manage and develop applications on HPC Server 2008 R2. This book also use the real application and management scenarios to thread through the chapters ...
Read more »
Labs
-
The click-through simulation will guide you through the installation of virtual Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 cluster. The virtual HPC compute nodes will be deployed automatically over a virtual network.
Links