14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has updated a free resource offered to customers running the last release of its Windows for supercomputers platform along with the first upgrade for the operating system.
A refreshed version of the Technical Overview of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 is now available on the Microsoft Download Center, and as it was the case for the initial version of this whitepaper, downloads are free.
As customers might expect, the whitepaper is designed to provide an overview of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. But at the same time, Microsoft also details Windows HPC Sever 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), including hardware requirements, features and capabilities.
“Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 is the third version of the Microsoft solution for high performance computing (HPC).
Built on Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit technology, Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 efficiently scales to thousands of nodes and integrates seamlessly with Windows-based IT infrastructures, providing ease-of-use, lower ownership costs, and high performance,” Microsoft stated.
The first upgrade for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 was released in the last quarter of 2010 and is now available to all of the software giant’s high performance computing customers.
According to the Redmond company, SP1 introduces a number of enhancements to various areas Windows HPC Server 2008 R2.
Microsoft reveals that customers will be able to take advantage of significant improvements in terms of: scalability, configuration and deployment options, Windows Azure integration, system management, diagnostics, and reporting, support for service-oriented architecture (SOA) workloads, message-passing interface (MPI) and networking.
“Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) added even more functionality to the HPC solution, including integration with the Windows Azure Service Platform.
“Windows Azure’s public, flexible, cloud computing platform offers on-demand, pay-as-you-go access to highly scalable compute and storage resources with 99.99% uptime,” the company revealed.