Windows Computer Cluster Server
MICROSOFT SAIDit today released Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003 to manufacturing, in line with an August launch.
The Vole has its beady eye on the 30 percent growth rate notched up in the high-performance computing (HPC) sector and decided it was time to muscle in with a Windows for HPC.
It said its Windows Compute Cluster runs parallel, high-performance computing applications for people solving complex computations. A spokesvole said it would be hawked in all corners of the market across the "gamut of verticals".
Boffins in academia and financial wizards would soon be staggered by the wonders of Windows on such big, powerful tin, be reckoned.
He said the Microsoft aimed to bring "standardisation from a platform perspective" to high performance cluster systems, reckoning WCC's simplicity of deployment - or "time to insight" in Volespeak - was a vote-winner here - along with its price of $469 a node.
Microsoft said had made a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investment in HPC. It is "absolutely committed" to the market, chimed in a second Vole, during a headless briefing this morning.
One organisation benefitting from Volish largesse is Queen's University of Belfast, whence Pro-Vice-Chancellor Ken Bell said he wanted to "expand the use of high performance computing to user groups who do not have the in-depth Unix or Linux skills associated with high performance computing." Hence, of course, his choice of the simplicity of Windows for Clusters.
Microsoft’s reckons its on to a high-performance computing boom, when "customers are presented with powerful computing economics in the forms of multicore processors, standards-based, high-speed interconnects and ubiquitous x64 (64-bit x86 architecture) computers".
It said demand for HPC is being driven by increased performance in processors and the price-performance of compute clusters