14 DAY TRIAL // Last week Microsoft made available for download the first public testing Build of the next iteration of its Windows for supercomputers operating system. Following the release of the first Beta development milestone for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, the Redmond company is now offering customers interested in running its next gen Windows OS for the high performance market the necessary resources to get an insight into the product. In this sense, the Redmond company offered the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta 1 documentation, published both on TechNet, but also available for download, for customers that need to access the resources in offline scenarios.
“This topic is pre-release documentation and is subject to change in future releases,” Microsoft informed. And because the documentation is pre-release, customers will come across blank topics. Microsoft explained that the blank topics were all included as placeholders. “The content in this technical library is intended for users who want to evaluate the Beta 1 release of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2.”
All customers interested in accessing the Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta 1 bits will need to join the Beta program associated with the operating system. As is the case with numerous projects from the software giant, the next version of the Beta program for the company’s Windows for supercomputers platform is hosted on Microsoft Connect. Users will first need to register with the Redmond company, and only subsequently be permitted access to Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta 1.
“On the HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta Program site, click Downloads on the left pane to go to the Downloads page. On the Downloads page, you can find: Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Beta 1: The high performance computing component of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2. It includes management tools, a job scheduler, and Microsoft Message Passing Interface (MS-MPI). HPC Pack 2008 R2 Beta 1 must be installed on a computer running Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition, or any other 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2. HPC Pack 2008 R2 can also be used to install the management tools on a client computer. [But also] Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition: The evaluation version of the operating system. [And] HPC Pack 2008 R2 SDK: The software development kit for writing applications that call the HPC scheduler APIs,” Microsoft stated.