Vendors line up to support Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003

Third-party software and hardware will encourage deployment of Microsoft's high-performance computing platform

Microsoft expects to have a strong line-up of software and hardware supporters when it officially releases its version of Windows for high-performance computing (HPC) late next month.

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is Microsoft’s attempt to combat the dominance of Linux in technical computing clustering tasks. Microsoft believes pre-packaged software will be critical to encourage adoption.

“We don’t want to go to the Top 500 [a list of highest-performing clusters] but the bottom 250,000,” said Tony Hey, Microsoft technical computing vice-president. “We’re working with the key independent software vendors to parallelise their code so the programs run on day one and users can afford to do things they couldn’t afford to do before. We’re trying to make parallel computing more of a commodity where you unwrap the box and it just works.”

Hey added that Microsoft intends to further differentiate itself through superior control tools so that scientists and others do not have to use unfamiliar tools to manage tasks. “We can do better in terms of productivity but Microsoft is at a stage where it recognises there’s a heterogeneous environment out there and we have to interoperate with Linux and open-source tools,” he said.

Mark Stewart, enterprise manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft, said he expects systems from tier-one vendors from the official release date. Sixteen-way and higher systems are planned.