Windows HPC Server 2008 High Productivity Computing With Windows.
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Transcript of Windows HPC Server 2008 High Productivity Computing With Windows.
Windows HPC Server 2008
High Productivity Computing With Windows
Agenda
What’s new in Windows HPC Server 2008
HPC Systems Management• Administration• Deployment• Integration with System Center
Networking and MPI
Job Scheduling• Service Oriented Architectures• Job Policies• Interoperability
Tools for Parallel Programming
Partnerships
Why Microsoft in HPC?Current Issues HPC and IT data centers merging: isolated cluster
management Developers can’t easily program for parallelism Users don’t have broad access to the increase in processing
cores and data
How can Microsoft help? Well positioned to mainstream integration of application
parallelism Have already begun to enable parallelism broadly to the
developer community Can expand the value of HPC by integrating productivity and
management tools
Microsoft Investments in HPCComprehensive software portfolio: Client, Server,
Management, Development, and CollaborationDedicated teams focused on Cluster ComputingUnified Parallel development through the Parallel Computing
InitiativePartnerships with the Technical Computing Institutes
Microsoft’s Productivity Vision for HPC
Administrator Application Developer End - User Integrated Turnkey HPC
Cluster Solution Simplified Setup and
Deployment Built-In Diagnostics Efficient Cluster Utilization Integrates with IT
Infrastructure and Policies
Integrated Tools for Parallel Programming
Highly Productive Parallel Programming Frameworks
Service-Oriented HPC Applications
Support for Key HPC Development Standards
Unix Application Migration
Seamless Integration with Workstation Applications
Integration with Existing Collaboration and Workflow Solutions
Secure Job Execution and Data Access
Windows HPC allows you to accomplish more, in less time, with reduced effort by leveraging users existing skills and integrating with the tools they are already using.
• Complete, integrated platform for computational clustering• Built on top the proven Windows Server 2008 platform• Integrated development environment
Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition
• Secure, Reliable, Tested
• Support for high performance hardware (x64, high-speed interconnects)
Microsoft HPC Pack 2008
• Job Scheduler• Resource Manager • Cluster Management• Message Passing Interface
Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008
• Integrated Solution out-of-the-box
• Leverages investment in Windows administration and tools
• Makes cluster operation easy and secure as a single system
Evaluation available from http://www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows HPC Server 2008
What’s new for HPC in Windows Server 2008?
• High Availability Services - failover now uses iSCSI• File Systems - Self-Healing NTFS
Reliability
• Windows 64-bit Hypervisor (HyperV)• New Event Log/Diagnostics• PowerShell
Manageability
• New TCP/IP stack with Winsock Direct improvements• Memory Manager Performance• Fewer, faster, and larger disk writes for pagefile and mapped file I/O (64 KB limit removed)
• I/O prioritization• I/O priority based on the priority of the issuing thread or the explicitly set I/O priority• Used by Windows Server 2008 background tasks like indexing and Windows Defender scans
• Numerous enhancement for Non-Uniform Memory Access(NUMA)• SMB 2.0• Supports NTFS client-side symbolic links• Operations can be batched to minimize client/server round trips • Support for arbitrary buffer sizes for more efficient copies result in 30-40x throughput
improvement
Performance
What’s new in the HPC Pack 2008?
Systems Management
Job Scheduling
Networking& MPI Storage
New System Center UI PowerShell for CLI Management High Availability for Head Nodes Windows Deployment Services Diagnostics/Reporting Support for Operations Manager
Support for SOA and WCF Granular resource scheduling Improved scalability for larger
clusters New Job scheduling policies Interoperability via HPC Profile
NetworkDirect (RDMA) for MPI
Improved Network Configuration Wizard
Shared Memory MS-MPI for multi-core
MS-MPI integrated with Windows Event Tracing
Improved iSCSI SAN & parallel file system Support in Win2008
Improved Server Message Block ( SMB v2)
New 3rd party parallel system file support for Windows
New Memory Cache Vendors
Spring 2008, NCSA, #239472 cores, 68.5 TF, 77.7%
Fall 2007, Microsoft, #1162048 cores, 11.8 TF, 77.1%
Spring 2007, Microsoft, #1062048 cores, 9 TF, 58.8%
Spring 2006, NCSA, #130896 cores, 4.1 TF
Spring 2008, Umea, #405376 cores, 46 TF, 85.5%
30% efficiencyimprovement
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Compute Cluster 2003
Winter 2005, Microsoft4 procs, 9.46 GFlops
Spring 2008, Aachen, #1002096 cores, 18.8 TF, 76.5%
Windows HPC Server 2008
Location Champaign, ILHardware – Machines Dell blade system with 1,200
PowerEdge 1955 dual-socket, quad-core Intel Xeon 2.3 GHz processors
Hardware – NetworkingInfiniBand and GigE
Number of Compute Nodes 1184Total Number of Cores 9,472 cores
Total Memory 9.6 terabytesParticulars of for current Linpack Runs Best Linpack rating 68.5 TFPs Best cluster efficiency 77.7%For Comparison…
Linpack rating from November 2007 Top500 run (#14) on the same hardware
68.5 TFPs
Cluster efficiency from November 2007 Top500 run (#XX) on the same hardware
69.9%
Typical Top500 efficiency for Clovertown motherboards w/ IB regardless of Operating System
65-77% 7.8% improvement in efficiency on the same
hardware running Linux
About 4 hours to deploy
Ready for Prime-time#23
Summer 2008
Systems Management
• Simple to setup and manage in a familiar environment– Turnkey cluster solutions through OEMs– Simplify system and application deployment
• Base images, patches, drivers, applications
• Focus on ease of management– Comprehensive diagnostics , troubleshooting
and monitoring– Familiar, flexible and “pivotal” management
interface– Equivalent command line support for
unattended management• Scale up
– Scale deployment, administration, infrastructure
– Head node failover– Cluster usage reporting– Compute node filtering
• Better integration with enterprise management
– Patch Management– System Center Operations Management– PowerShell– Windows 2008 high Availability Services
Improved Efficiency for the Systems Admin
Head Node High Availability
– Next generation of cluster services– Major improvement in
configuration validation and management
• HPC Pack Includes– Setup integration with Failover
Clustering Services• Head Node and Failover Node set
up with SQL Failover Cluster• Job Scheduler services failover
– Management console linked to Windows Server Failover Management console
Shared Disk
Private Network
Head nodeWin2008 Enterprise
Clustered SQL Server
Failover Head nodeWin2008 Enterprise
Clustered SQL Server
WindowsFailover Clustered
• Eliminates single point of failure with support for high availability• Requires Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Services
System Center Operations Manager for HPC
A more productive HPC environment• Canned reports for end-user perspective monitoring• Security logs analysis and reporting
Scalable Monitoring• Monitor apps running in a scale out, distributed environment• Scale using tiered management servers• Agent-less Monitoring
Increased Efficiency and Control• More secure by design• Integration with Active Directory• Extended solution with Management Packs
Networking & MPI
NetworkDirect
• Priorities– Comparable with hardware-optimized MPI
stacks• Focus on MPI-Only Solution for version 2
– Verbs-based design for close fit with native, high-perf networking interfaces
– Coordinated w/ Win Networking team’s long-term plans
• Implementation– MS-MPIv2 capable of 4 networking paths:
• Shared Memory between processors on a motherboard
• TCP/IP Stack (“normal” Ethernet)• Winsock Direct (and SDP)
for sockets-based RDMA• New RDMA networking interface
– HPC team partners with networking IHVs to develop/distribute drivers for this new interface
User Mode
Kernel Mode
TCP/Ethernet Networking
Ker
nel B
y-P
ass
MPI AppSocket-Based App
MS-MPI
Windows Sockets (Winsock + WSD)
Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareNetworking Hardware
Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareHardware Driver
Networking HardwareNetworking
HardwareMini-port Driver
TCP
NDIS
IP
Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareUser Mode Access Layer
Networking HardwareNetworking
HardwareWinSock Direct Provider
Networking Hardware
Networking Hardware
NetworkDirect Provider
RDMA Networking
OS Component
CCP Component
IHV Component(ISV) App
A new RDMA networking interface built for speed and stability
High Speed Networking Technologies
Myrinet, In
finiband, 10GigE
1Gig Ethernet
100MB Ethernet
Ban
dwid
th
Availability
CiscoVoltaireQlogic
Open Fabrics
Myricom
NetEffect
Job Scheduling
What’s new in in Job Scheduling
Broader application support
Expanded Job Policies
Support for Job Templates
Improve interoperability with mixed IT infrastructure
Broader Application Support
App.exe App.exe Service(DLL)
Service(DLL)
Service(DLL)
Service(DLL)App.exe App.exe
Engineering Applications
Structural AnalysisCrash Simulation
Oil & Gas Applications
Reservoir simulationSeismic Processing
Life Science Applications
Structural AnalysisCrash Simulation
Financial Services
Portfolio analysisRisk analysisComplianceActual
Excel
PricingModeling
Interactive Cluster Applications
Your applications here
Job Scheduler
Resource allocationProcess Launching
Resource usage trackingIntegrated MPI execution
Integrated Security
WCF Brokers
WS Virtual Endpoint ReferenceRequest load balancing
Integrated Service activationService life time management
Integrated WCF Tracing
2003 (focusing on batch jobs) 2008 (focusing on Interactive jobs)
+
Track service resource usageRun service as the user
Restart upon failureSupport application tracing
Balance the requestsGrow & shrink service poolProvide WS Interoperability
Node heat maps, Performance monitor, & Event logs
Job statusService usage
reportTracing logs
Occurring on the
back end
Admin Experience
User Experience
ControlPath
Data path
Job statusService usage
reportTracing logs
Job SchedulerRouter
JobService
Job
WCF Broker
Client
Redundant Head Nodes
…
Compute Nodes
n Service Instances
WCF Broker Nodes
Send/Receive Messages
3
Create a Session
1
Start Broker
Service Instance
Node Manage
r
Service Instance
Node Manage
r
Service Instance
Node Manage
r2
Service-Oriented Jobs
• Encapsulates application resource requirements, job prioritization and resource allocation policies
• Created by the admin, ACL’ed to a set of users so that the resources can be delivered to the users in ways that meet the organization’s business priorities
What are they?
• Define the Value range: defines the range of values that the term can take. The value range can be empty. If the value provided at the job submission is not in the defined range, the job is rejected.
• Provide a default value: if a profile defines the default value, the user is not required to specify the job term
How to Define?
Job Templates
Job Templates
Permission to Submit
Permission to Submit
Permission to Submit
Cluster Resources
Cluster Resources
Cluster Resources
Job Submission
Job Template
Job Submission
Job Submission
Job Template
Job Template
Admin createsresource
partitions by creating job submission
policies
1
Admission control Descriptions Definitions
Runtime to be mandatory A supercomputing center wanting to enforce the runtime for all the jobs
Profile: defaultRuntime:requiredDefault: noneUsers: All
Multiple Line of Businesses (LOBs) sharing a cluster
Admin would like to apportion resources to different nodes
Profile LOB1:Users: user1, user2Priority: normal,Select:”sas && ib && processorspeed > 2000000”Uniform: switchIdRange: N/AProfile LOB2:Users: user3, user4Askednodes:host2 host3 host 4
Power user job priority Power user userA can use all the nodes in the cluster
Profile PowerUser:Users: userAAskednodes: AllPriority: HighestRange:
Users submit using different
templates
2
Example Policies
Five New Scheduling Policies
• Resource Matching– Job submit /nodegroup:appX myapp.exe
• Job Admission Policies via Templates– Job submit /template:groupY myapp.exe
• Multi-Level Processor Allocation– job submit /numsockets:4-8 myapp.exe
• Adaptive Allocation (Grow/Shrink)– job submit myapp.exe
• Preemption– Cluscfg PreemptionEnabled=true
GigE
Blade Chassis
8-coreservers
InfiniBand
16-coreservers 32-core
servers
InfiniBandInfiniBand
GigE
10 GigE
10 GigE
A big model (requiresLarge memory machines)
An ISV application (requiresNodes where the application is
installed)
MATLAB
C0 C1
M
C2 C3
M
Quad-core
C0 C1
M
C2 C3
|||||||| ||||||||
|||||||| ||||||||
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
M
P0 P1
P2 P3
32-core
IO IO
4-way Structural Analysis MPI Job
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLAB
MATLABMulti-threaded application
(requires machine with manyCores)
MATLAB
NumaAware
CapacityAware
ApplicationAware
Scenario: Placement via Job Contextnode grouping, job templates, filters
Scenario : Memory Bus Saturation
Node 1
S0
P0 P1
P2 P3
S1
P0 P1
P2 P3
S2
P0 P1
P2 P3
S3
P0 P1
P2 P3
Node 2
S0
P0 P1
P2 P3
S1
P0 P1
P2 P3
S2
P0 P1
P2 P3
S3
P0 P1
P2 P3
J1 J1
J1 J3
J2 J2
J2 J2
J2 J2
J2 J2
J2 J2
J2 J2
J2 J2
J1: /numsockets:3 /exclusive: falseJ3: /numsockets:3 /exclusive: false
J2: /numsockets:14 /exclusive: false
Policy: Multi-level Allocation
Scenario: mixed workload
Faster turnaround for high priority jobsUses Grow/Shrink policy, Preemptive Scheduling Policies
Job 1 Tasks
Job 2 Tasks
Job 3 High Priority
Pro
cess
ors
Time
Job 3 getsSubmitted
Job 3 getsCompletes
Policy: Priority Resource Allocation
Scenario: Long Tail Parametric Apps
Addresses “Long Tail” problem for jobs with many tasks of varying runtimeImprove cluster utilization by giving nodes where they are needed and to the highest priority jobs
Job 1 Tasks
Job 2 Tasks
Job 3 Tasks
Pro
cess
ors
Time
Idle Processors
Idle Processors
Idle Processors
Policy: Grow/Shrink Resource Allocation
Job Policies SummaryFeatures Description Version
Priority FCFS
Jobs are placed in the queue based on priority & submission Time. Jobs are in the queue on a First-Come First-Serve basis in the order they are submitted, except that ALL Highest Priority jobs are ahead of all Above Normal Priority jobs which are ahead of all Normal Priority jobs etc . . .
Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008
BackfillingResources are reserved based on resource allocations. If the Job Scheduler identifies open windows for resources within the reserved timelines, it can backfill by selecting smaller jobs for execution within this window
Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008
Exclusive Scheduling
When a job is “Exclusive” no other job can run on a node with that job. When a task is “Exclusive” no other task can run on a node with that task.
Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008
Resource Match-making
Schedule against admin defined groups of nodes. We allow scheduling based on a limited amount of hardware properties and ordering by different hardware properties.
Windows HPC 2008
Multi-level Compute Resource Allocation
The Job Scheduler optimally places memory-intensive jobs to avoid contention of memory, delivering maximum and predictable application performance.
Windows HPC 2008
PreemptionPre-emption occurs when high-priority jobs take resources away from lower-priority jobs which are already running. Windows HPC 2008
Grow & Shrink Scheduling
A job may not have “uneven resource requirements” it may just need 100 resources to run 1000 tasks. With Grow Shrink, the job scheduler can give it 1 resource to get it started, and then additional resources as they become available. Once it has 100 resources and less than 100 tasks, job scheduler can begin taking away the un-needed resources.
Windows HPC 2008
Interoperability & Open Grid Forum
What is it? •A draft OGSA (Open Grid Services Architectures) interoperability standard for batch job scheduler task submission and management
•Based on web services standards (HTTP, XML, SOAP)
What is its value?•Enables integration of HPC applications executing on different platforms and schedulers via web services standards
What’s the Status?•Passed the public comment period
•Working on new extensions
Windows Cluster
Window Center
Windows Center
LSF / PBS / SGE / Condor
Linux, AIX, Solaris HPUX, Windows
Job Scheduling SummaryTools Windows CCS 2003 Windows HPC 2008
End User Tools
1. CLI2. Job Manager UI
1. Powershell CLI 2. New Job Manager UI with built-in
parametric support & custom job filtering
Admin Tools1. Cluscfg for configuration2. clusrun
1. Configuration UI2. Enhanced clusrun
Developer Tools
1. C# API2. COM API
1. WCF Integration2. Scalable API with Rowset and eventing
support3. Standard Job Submission Interface (HPC
Profile)
Scheduling Policies
1. FCFS 2. Backfill3. Exclusive Scheduling4. License scheduling
1. Resource matchmaking2. Job Template3. Multi-level processor allocation4. Adaptive allocation / grow & shrink 5. Preemption
Parallel Programming
Parallel Programming• Available Now
– Development and Parallel debugging in Visual Studio– 3rd party Compilers, Debuggers, Runtimes etc..
available
• Emerging Technologies – Parallel Extensions to .NET Framework
– LINQ/PLINQ – natural OO language for SQL queries in .NET
– Task Parallel libraries– currently CTP June ‘08
Compilers and Languages
• Visual C++• Visual C#•Visual Basic•Visual F#
• Intel C++• Intel Fortran• PGI C++• PGI Fortran
Debuggers
• WinDbg•VS Debugger (MC & MPI)•Allinea Visual Studio plug-in (MPI)•MPI/Event Tracing for Windows•PGI MPI Debugger
Profilers• Visual Studio Profiler• Vtune• Code Analyst
•MPI/Event Tracing for Windows• PGI MPI Profiler
Analyzers
• Marmot• MPI/Event Tracing for Windows• Vampir
• Intel Trace Collector/Analyzer• Intel Thread Checker• Utah U MPI model checker
Parallel Programming Models
• OpenMP•MPI (MS, Intel, HP MPI Libs)•MPI.NET•MPI.C++
• PFx: Tark Paralell Library• PFx: Parallel LINQ• SOA on Cluster•Intel Thread Building Blocks
Math Libraries• Intel MKL• AMD IMSL•Visual Numerics
• NAG• Other OSS mathlibs
Parallel Program Tools
Version ComparisonFeature Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Windows HPC Server 2008
Operating system Windows Server 2003 SP1 Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter
Processor Type X64 (AMD64 or Intel EM64T) X64 (AMD64 or Intel EM64T)
Memory 32 GB (Compute Cluster Edition) 128 GB (HPC Edition)
Node Deployment Remote Installation Services(RIS) Windows Deployment Services
Head Node Availability N/A Windows Failover Clustering and SQL Server Failover Clustering
Management Basic node and job management Integrated node and job management, grouping, monitoring at-a-glance, diagnostics
Network Topology Network Configuration Wizard Improved Network Configuration Wizard
MS-MPI Winsock Direct-based Network Direct-based. New shared memory implementation for multicore processors
Scheduler Command line or GUIIntegrated in management console, with full support for Windows PowerShell scripting and legacy command-line UI scripts from v1. Greatly improved speed and scalability
Programmability Support for Batch or MPI based jobsAdded support for interactive Service Oriented Applications (SOA) using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
Reporting N/A Integrated into Management console
Monitoring Rely on Windows. No cluster specific support. Heat map on cluster or node group. Per node charts. Cluster-wide performance overview
Diagnostics N/A In the box verification tests and performance tests. Store, filter, and view test results and history
NAS and Clustered
NAS
Shared File Systems or SAN
file systems
Parallel File Systems
Agg
rega
te (
Mb/
s/co
re)
Number of cores in cluster
Greater Sophistication
• Windows Server 2003 • Windows Server 2008 …
• HP - PolyServe • Ibrix - Fusion• Quantum - StorNext• SANbolic – Melio file
system
• IBM – GPFS• Panasas – Active
Scale• SUN - Lustre
HPC Storage Solutions
Release Schedule
• RC1– Publicly Available• RTM – Early Fall 2008
March 2008
Beta 1 CTP 1 Beta 2 RTM
Nov 2007
May2008
Fall2008
April2008
CTP2
Industry Focused Partners
Windows HPC Server 2008 Offerings
Windows HPC Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 Express
3rd Party
Systems Center Operations Manager
HPC Pack
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Systems Center Configurations Manager
• Turnkey Solutions up to 1000 nodes
• HPC Pack• Management• Deployment• Job Scheduling
• 3rd Party packages for enhanced job scheduling, policies
Basic Turnkey High Availability Enterprise Management
• No single point of failure• Windows Server 2008
Enterprise for head node high availability
• SQL Server 2008 Enterprise for high availability
• Scale to many 1000’s of nodes• System Center Operations
Manager for enhanced monitoring
• System Center Configuration Manager for enhanced deployment and patch management
Windows Server 2008 Core• Lightweight small footprint/No UI/CLI• HyperV• No .NET Framework
SQL Server 2008 Standard
HPC Pack
3rd Party
SQL Server 2008 Standard
HPC Pack
3rd Party
Windows HPC Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Windows HPC Roadmap
V1Summer 2006
Service Pack 1 Performance & Reliability Improvements Support for Windows Server 2003 SP2 Support for Windows Deployment Services Vista Support for CCP Client tools
Mainstream HPC
SP1 & Web2007
Mainstream High Performance Computing on Windows platform Interoperability: Web Services for Job Scheduler, Parallel File
Systems Applications: Service Oriented, Batch, .NET Turnkey: Enabling pre-configured OEM solutions Scale: Large scale, non-uniform clusters, diagnostics framework
Version 2H2 2008
Mainstream High Performance Computing on Windows platform Simple to set up and manage in familiar environment Integrated with existing Windows infrastructure
Web Releases MOM Pack PowerShell for CLI Tools for Accelerating Excel
• Microsoft HPC Web site – Evaluate Today!– http://www.microsoft.com/hpc
• Windows HPC Community site– http://www.windowshpc.net
• Windows HPC Techcenter– http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/hpc/default.aspx
• HPC on MSDN– http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/hpc
• Windows Server Compare website– http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx
Resources
© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.
• The MPI forum is an international forum that defines the MPI standard. Since 1992 is has defined MPI 1.0 1.2 and 2.0 standards. This standard body is important as over the years MPI has become the de-facto parallel programming interface/paradigm.
• The MPI forum has come together this year, 2008 in an effort to renew and update the MPI standard to put MPI 2.1, 2.2 and 3.0 standards. The MPI forum is determined goal is to answer the world demand for significant features which will enable MPI to better handle the scope of tomorrow’s systems and the breath of applications using MPI.
• The MPI forum body includes representatives from many software companies, Universities, MPI implementers and hardware vendors. The forum meets in person every two months to discuss proposals, issues at hand and vote on the outcome. Microsoft takes a leading role in this forum leading several workgroup and hosting some of the forum meetings.
• The MPI forum goal is to release MPI 2.1 standard by the end of 2008, MPI 2.1 by mid 2009 and MPI 3.0 by the end of 2010.
• The unofficial wiki page web site; you can find MPI workgroups information on these pages.
– https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web
• The official MPI web site– http://www.mpi-forum.org
• The meetings info web pages– http://meetings.mpi-forum.org
About the MPI Forum
Financial Services Firm Scales Fast-Growing Hedging Application on Low-Cost Windows Cluster
Fund Manager Improves Performance, Eases Administration with Computing Cluster
“It’s like having an incredibly powerful CPU at your finger tips. The ease of use creates a kind of transparency where the line between the desktop and the compute cluster no longer exists.” -
Christopher Mellen, Head of Research, Grinham Managed Funds
Investment Bank Improves Competitive Edge with High Performance Computing
Investment Bank Plans to Boost IT Performance, Reduce Hardware Costs with New Server Technology
“From now on, whatever we will be testing, developing, or evaluating will be based on Windows Server 2008—whether it’s business-driven, transition-driven, or research-driven.” - Sorin Manta,
Manager, Windows Server Infrastructure, Technology and Operations, BMO Capital Markets
IT Services Company Develops Risk and Trading Systems on Integrated Platform
ISV Opts Against Open Source, Doubles Revenue with Office Business Application“By using Microsoft technologies as the foundation for our development, we’re producing an easy-
to-use, understandable, low-cost offering that can be confidently adopted by financial services customers.” - Graham Twaddle, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Modelling
Windows HPC Success Stories: Financial Services
Leading HPC Vendor Eases Adoption for Customers, with New Windows-Based Offerings
“Many companies see value from HPC, but they have little to no experience with Linux… We need to provide a way for them to advance their theories and research using what they already know.” -
Beverly Bernard, Product Manager, SGI
Switch from Linux to Windows Increases Value of HPC for Golf Equipment“Manufacturer jobs that took 40 hours are now down to 8, enabling engineers to test and refine
their designs much faster.” - John Loo, Design Systems Senior Manager, Callaway Golf
Shipbuilder Introduces HPC on Microsoft to Develop High Value-Added Ship Types
64-bit Compute Cluster Performs Crash Analysis, Aides in Safety Compliance
Boeing Tests High Performance Computing Cluster, Improves Processing Time “Because we develop intelligent graphics software in a Windows environment, it makes sense to work with an HPC cluster that supports that framework.” - John F. Bremer Advanced Computing
Technologist, Intelligent Graphics Group Boeing
Manufacturer Provides Engineers with Easy-to-Use, High-Performance Computing Solution
Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing
Engineers at French Production Company Improve Productivity with New Business Solution
Microsoft High Performance Computing Solution Helps Oil Company Increase the Productivity of Research Staff
“With Windows Compute Cluster Server, setup time has decreased from several hours—or even days for large clusters—to just a few minutes, regardless of cluster size.” - IT Manager, Petrobras
CENPES Research Center
Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) in South Africa adopts Windows HPC Technology Over Linux.
Australian Company Delivers Solutions Faster, Expands Capabilities with HPC Solution
“I came in with zero knowledge of Windows HPC Server 2008 deployment, although I knew a lot about Linux. Within a couple of days, I was deploying Windows-based nodes.” - Dr. Simon
Beard ,Systems Specialist, On Demand Group, ISA Technologies
NASCAR Team Turns to High Performance Computing to Sharpen Competitive Edge
“With simulation times reduced from 24 hours to about 30 minutes, we can run multiple simulations for each race and better tune the simulations for each car, track, and set of track
conditions.” - Mark PaxtonResearch and Development Engineering Manager, NASCAR Team, Chip Ganassi Racing
SIMULIA Delivers Simulation Solutions Faster with Windows HPC Server 2008, and Sees the Advanced Programming Tool Set as a Critical Asset.
Florida Boosts Productivity, Cuts Run Times with High-Performance Computing Cluster
Easier Cluster Management Helps Northrop Grumman Improve Productivity“Windows Compute Cluster Server has caused a paradigm shift. Before I had to limit my problem
size because I ran out of resources. Now I feel enabled to think bigger.” - Thi Pham, PhD, Systems Engineer, Space Technology Sector, Northrop Grumman
Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing
Simulation Software on x64 Compute Clusters Boosts Performance, Reduces Costs
Software Company Delivers 64-Bit Fidelity and Speed for Computer-Aided Engineering
French Yacht Team Streamlines Design with Secure and Familiar Technology
“The transition from Linux to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 was flawless. In fact, it was so easy we didn’t even notice a change in the office.” - Bernard Nivelt, Lead Designer, AREVA
Challenge
Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research
Windows HPC Server 2008 Ranks at 23 Among the World’s TOP500 Largest Supercomputers with 68.5 TFlops and 77.7 Percent Efficiency. (June 2008)
“The performance of Windows HPC Server 2008 has yielded efficiencies that are among the highest we’ve seen for this class of machine.” - Robert Pennington, Deputy Director, National
Center for Supercomputing Applications
The Umeå Cluster Achieved a LINPACK Score of 46.04 TFlops and 85.6 Percent Efficiency, Making Their System the Second Largest Windows Cluster Ever
Deployed and the Fastest Academic Cluster in Sweden. (June 2008)
Leading Supercomputing Center in Italy Eases Use, Improves Access with New Cluster
“It will be a big benefit for us to offer researchers a high-performance computing resource with a familiar interface and a natural, user-friendly way to use the cluster from home.” - Dr. Marco Voli,
CINECA
Facility for Breakthrough Science Seeks to Expand User Base with Windows-Based HPC
Researchers’ Move from Linux to Windows Yields Performance Gains, New Capabilities
“We were quite surprised when, without any optimization, the new Windows–based HPC system outperformed our highly optimized Linux cluster.” – Valerie Daggett, Professor, University of
Washington
National IT Center Improves Customer Service with High-Performance Compute Cluster.
“Using Windows for high-performance computing means we can offer our customers real added value.” - Uwe Wössner, Head of the Visualization Department, High Performance Computing
Center Stuttgart
Early Detection of Cancer One Step Closer to Solution with Microsoft, Dell and Intel“The user interface and structure of the Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server make
managing a large, high-performance computing cluster far less daunting than with other operating systems.” - Dr Robert Moritz, Manager of the Proteomics Facility at LICR and Director of the
Australian Proteomics Computational Facility
Inventor of Beowulf Cluster Exposes Young Minds to High-Performance Computing
Portuguese University Accelerates Cancer Research with High-Performance Computing
Microsoft Researchers Boost Task Productivity Fiftyfold with Cluster Server Software
Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research
Environmental Scientists Join Forces Against Climate Change with Integrated Platform
“This is the first time we’ve delivered an integrated solution whereby researchers can sit in front of a Web browser and drive it to completely different scenarios using the data and models of
different institutions.” - Simon Cox, Professor of Computational Methods at the University of Southampton and Technical Director for Genie
Supercomputing Solution Reduces IT Administration Needs at University of Cincinnati Genome Research Institute.
Research-Driven University Breaks Down Barriers to High-Performance Computing
Scientists Accelerate Research and Insight with Accessible, High-Performance Computing Environment
“Even students who come from a Linux background and are using Microsoft developer tools for the first time are finding the change to be positive.” - Iain Buchan, Director of the Northwest Institute
for BioHealth Informatics at the University of Manchester
University of British Columbia (Vancouver) selects Windows HPC technology over Linux for Masters of Digital Media graduate program
Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research
Digital Media School Deploys Render Farm Technology, Cuts Compute Runtime By Days
“Before we had render farm, every student rendered on his or her own PC, so sharing images and viewing the current status was not easy. Now we can decide how many PCs will render a particular image. On 32 machines it takes just a couple of hours—this is a huge reduction in
time.” - Ng Kian Bee, Deputy Director, Games & Digital Entertainment of NYP’s SIDM
Digital Marketing Firm Installs Microsoft HPC Solution to Simplify IT Operations
Windows HPC Success Stories: Digital Content Creation