14 DAY TRIAL // The second beta development milestone of LINQ to HPC is available for download and testing to early adopters.
The release comes on the heels of HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 (SP2), but this is no coincidence, since HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP2 is required in order to run LINQ to HPC Beta 2, according to Microsoft’s Don Pattee.
Testers that want to take LINQ to HPC Beta 2 out for a spin need to head over to Microsoft Connect and sign up to participate in the beta program. Obviously, they’ll need to have set up a high-performance computing testing environment.
LINQ TO HPC is designed to let HPC customers take advantage of data-intensive computing with Windows HPC Server, the software giant explains.
“LINQ to HPC enables a new class of data intensive applications by providing a sophisticated distributed runtime and associated programming model for analyzing large volumes of unstructured data using commodity clusters,” Pattee said.
“LINQ to HPC is offered as an integral feature of Windows HPC Server, providing a unified scale-out platform that can run both compute and data intensive HPC applications.”
LINQ to HPC is designed to integrate with a range of Microsoft technologies, enabling the company’s HPC customers to leverage such products as SQL Server 2008, SQL Azure, but also Business Intelligence offerings, including SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Analysis Services, PowerPivot, and Excel.
Early adopters can also download “Introducing LINQ to HPC: Data-Intensive Computing with Windows HPC Server” whitepaper and get additional insight into the technology.
“LINQ to HPC is based on LINQ, a powerful, language integrated query model, offering a higher level of abstraction that makes it easy to develop distributed, scale-out data intensive applications. It integrates with Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET framework for a superior development experience and increased developer productivity,” Pattee added.
“Through Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, LINQ to HPC offers a familiar, easy to use and easy to manage environment that lets you take advantage of your existing IT infrastructure, thereby reducing the learning curve and increasing return on investment.”
HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 (SP2) RTM is available for download here.
HPC Pack 2008 R2 Client Utilities Redistributable Package with Service Pack 2 is available for download here.
HPC Pack 2008 R2 MS-MPI Redistributable Package with Service Pack 2 is available for download here.