14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have inked an agreement designed to give the two companies the edge on the high-performance computing market from both sales and marketing points of view. The alliance announced on June 25 2007, represents the evolution of the existing Microsoft and HP partnership over high-performance computing. In accordance with the new terms, HP will bundle Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server (CCS) 2003 into its own Unified Cluster Portfolio. This means that HP ProLiant servers, HP BladeSystem and HP Cluster platforms will come with CCS 2003. The two companies failed to make public the financial details of their agreement but Microsoft did hint to a multimillion-dollar investment.
"High-performance computing is poised for continued strong growth, averaging over 20 percent a year for the last four years, with HPC standards-based clusters growing at even higher rates. End-users are looking for easy-to-use systems and will likely go with vendors that can provide an easy transition from their desktops to HPC servers," said Earl Joseph, program vice president, IDC, an industry analyst firm. "The HP and Microsoft partnership to provide Windows Compute Cluster Server on ProLiant and Blades platforms has the potential to address these key user requirements and enable more customers to take advantage of HPC technologies. Many users, especially desktops users, are already familiar with the Windows environment, and this partnership provides an easy transition to an HPC solution."
HP and Microsoft have already set in place technology centers in Houston (U.S.) and Grenoble (France) delivering users with locations supporting application benchmarking, testing and validation for HP servers powered by Windows CCS. Microsoft revealed that, in the end, the alliance with HP will bring the delivery and deployment of supercomputing clusters, along with support and management to the mass market.
"Microsoft is making long-term investments in HPC to help the community collaborate on innovative solutions that can accelerate the pace of discovery and insights," said Bill Laing, general manager of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. "Microsoft's work with HP (...) will deliver greater productivity and performance so they can tackle today's most complex, technical computing challenges. Our long-established relationship with HP, and strong reseller channels, will enable us to bring HPC solutions to enterprise and midmarket customers."