HPCwire: Microsoft Announces Newest HPC Platform

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September 22, 2008

Microsoft Announces Newest HPC Platform

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Windows HPC Server 2008 allows Wall Street firms to deploy quickly, leverage existing resources and scale from workstation to cluster -- all in a familiar Windows environment.

NEW YORK, Sept. 22 -- Microsoft Corp. today announced it has released to manufacturing its newest server -- Windows HPC Server 2008, giving Wall Street firms an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective and scalable high-performance computing (HPC) solution. Today's event kicks off a series of global launch activities in the coming weeks to support the new product.

During a keynote address at the 2008 High Performance on Wall Street conference, Bill Laing, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows Server and Solutions Division, discussed how financial services firms are increasingly turning to HPC resources to conduct real-time and intra-day risk analysis in response to the turbulent market environment.

"Companies have to be more efficient than ever with IT resources, but need to maintain their position in a competitive marketplace. They require HPC solutions that deploy quickly, integrate in a heterogeneous environment and scale from workstation to cluster," Laing said. "The launch of Windows HPC Server 2008 is just another step in our vision to drive HPC mainstream."

In his keynote speech, Laing also noted that the company's HPC vision goes beyond traditional HPC workloads. Microsoft brings the value of an integrated HPC solution and a productive development environment to customers for whom high-performance computing has been out of reach in the past. By focusing on productivity for users, developers and administrators, Microsoft is positioned to take high-performance computing mainstream.

"IDC research shows that high-performance computing has been one of the highest-growth IT markets over the past five years," said Earl Joseph, HPC program vice president at IDC. "Microsoft has made significant advancements in its products targeted for the HPC market, especially with the launch of Windows HPC Server 2008."

Laing also talked about how Windows HPC Server 2008 gives developers the tools to use high-performance computing with the Microsoft products that businesses already own and use every day, including Office Excel and Office SharePoint Server, through a new service-oriented architecture (SOA) within HPC development.

Windows HPC Server 2008, the successor to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, is based on Windows Server 2008 and is designed to do the following:

Improve productivity of systems administration and cluster interoperability by dramatically simplifying the overall deployment, administration and management over the entire system lifetime while ensuring interoperability with existing systems infrastructure.
Rapid HPC application development through integration with Visual Studio 2008, which provides a comprehensive parallel programming environment. In addition to supporting standard interfaces such as OpenMP, multiprocessor interconnect (MPI) and Web services, Window HPC Server 2008 also supports third-party numerical library providers, performance optimizers, compilers and debugging toolkits.
Seamlessly scale from workstation to cluster by allowing end users to harness the power of distributed computing through a familiar Windows-based desktop environment without requiring specialized skills or training.

Greater Opportunities for Customers and Partners

Close to 100 companies in various vertical industries, including Lloyds TSB Bank in financial services, participated in early evaluation and feedback programs during the development of Windows HPC Server 2008.

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