14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft announced the availability of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, yesterday, at the High Performance Computing Financial Markets Conference.
This high-performance computing solution was built to handle the toughest technical computing workloads in business, government and academia.
Bill Hilf, general manager, Microsoft Technical Computing Group confirmed and said that “this release of Windows HPC server is a key step in our long-term goal to make the power of technical computing accessible to a broader set of customers, with capabilities across the desktop, servers and the cloud.
“Customers in all industries can use Windows HPC Server as a foundation for building and running simulations that model the world around us, speeding discovery and helping to make better decisions,” he added.
The cloud is an extremely important part of Microsoft’s Technical Computing initiative, this is why, at the High Performance Computing Financial Markets Conference, Microsoft explained the way that customers will be able to transfer HPC workloads from their on-site data centers to the cloud, benefiting from optimum power.
The next update for Windows HPC Server will allow every customer to plan and manage HPC nodes in Windows Azure from within on-premises server clusters.
To return to Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, its customers want to perform different missions, from fighting disease to simulating financial markets or even build the next generation of vehicles, so this new server has major technological advancements.
First of all, the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 is a complete and compact solution for customers' every need, and they do not have to invest in other additional technologies.
It is also interoperable with the Microsoft IT infrastructure that most people have today, like Microsoft Office, Microsoft System Center, Active Directory and SharePoint Server.
Windows HPC Server has a performance which equals that of Linux, according to open source benchmarks and public software dealers and a recent study shows that it is 32% to 51% cheaper than Linux-based HPC systems over five years.
Being so powerful, it reduces processing time, like for example the HPC Services for Excel 2010 in Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, which calculates very fast big, complex spreadsheets by orders of magnitude.
This way, the calculation of a workbook with 1,700 records will drop from 14 hours to under three minutes.
Microsoft also aims to ease the development of HPC applications for the new generation of distributed, or parallel, computing resources on client systems, server clusters and in the cloud.
This is also why the company developed Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010, and along with partners like Intel Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation, it offers an integrated parallel computing platform.
Earl Joseph at IDC, said that “technical computing presents an enormous opportunity to transform massive amounts of data into powerful insights and solutions.
“Companies and products, like the new Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, help customers easily take advantage of new technology advances, such as HPC clusters, GPUs, cloud computing and multicore processors.
“All of these enhancements will help to accelerate the growth of the high-performance computing market.”
The Windows HPC platform is already becoming very popular as forty partners announced their support yesterday.
Customers wishing to evaluate Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 can visit http://www.microsoft.com/hpc.