Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are not the only operating systems cooking over at Microsoft. The Redmond company is also building the next-generation Windows platform for supercomputers. In fact, the software giant has reached a sufficiently advanced development point with its flavor of Windows for the high-performance computing market that it is delivering to customers the first Community Technical Preview. Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 CTP is now available for download via Microsoft Connect.

“We have customers in production and they’ve provided us with a list of great features for our upcoming release. With this CTP we provide the first of many mission critical features, disconnection/reconnection for SOA workloads. Say you submit a million Monte Carlo simulations to the cluster. In the past you would receive the calculations as they were completed, one by one. With our CTP you could submit from your laptop, disconnect, go home, play with the dog, sleep soundly, and come back in the morning to collect the complete set of results,” revealed Ryan Waite, product unit manager, Windows HPC Server.

Waite indicated that Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 was nothing more than a technical Preview at this point in time. Microsoft has in no way finalized the feature set of its next iteration of Windows for supercomputers. Customers that will start testing Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 CTP should expect the software giant to deliver additional mission critical features with the upcoming development milestones of the operating system.

“Using a cluster should be as easy as using any other network resource. Just like you can connect to a network printer and print jobs, you should be able to connect to a cluster, submit a computationally challenging job, and get the results. Our improved job scheduler includes a number of customer requested features including job progress and pre/post tasks. Pre/post tasks are cool because you can use them to set up and tear down compute nodes,” Waite added.

Microsoft delivered the Beta 2 of Windows HPC Server 2008 approximately a year ago, a release that is based on the plain-vanilla Windows Server 2008. Marking the evolution of Windows platforms, Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 has Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows 7 Server) as its foundation.

“HPC Server 2008 allowed people who weren’t supercomputing geniuses to set up and run a cluster, easily and quickly. Our CTP includes a number of enhancements to our distributed management infrastructure, including the ability to create custom heat maps and use 3rd party reporting tools,” Waite said.