Microsoft's next generation Windows for Supercomputers is moving forward, making an important step since the end of 2007. With in excess of 1,000 bugs fixed, Windows HPC Server 2008 has now reached Beta 2. The previous beta of Windows HPC Server 2008 was released in November 2007, and for the latest beta, Microsoft promises improvements across the table, along with the introduction of new features and even design modifications. According to Ryan Waite, Group Program Manager - HPC, Windows HPC Server 2008 beta 2 Build 1345 is ready for deployment into testing environments via the company's Technology Adoption Partners.

"We checked in high availability for the head node and a new set of diagnostic tests to help people identify and troubleshoot their clusters. The new UI model is really coming together but for users more comfortable with command line interfaces we provide scripting support through COM and PowerShell. Finally, administrators can run administrative scripts in parallel across the cluster using our improved Clusrun feature. A bunch of humbling usability testing pushed us to redesign the To Do List," Waite explained.

With this release of Windows HPC Server 2008, Microsoft has also wrapped up with the Application Programming interface for job submission, delivering a way for independent software vendors to tap the job scheduler, independent of the volume of jobs and tasks per cluster. In addition, Beta 2 via the HPC Basic Profile is interoperable with the LSF and PBSPro job schedulers.

Windows HPC Server 2008 Beta 2 Build 1345 is available for download here.

"Finally, our new programming model based on SOA is getting some nice usage from beta customers. For Beta 2 we improved scalability, reduced latency and improved session initialization time. Beta 2 supports multiple WCF Brokers, allowing HPC Server 2008 to run really big SOA workloads. So, we're done with Beta 2. Lots of new features and lots of scalability improvements," Waite added.