Second Beta for Windows HPC 2008 Ships

The second version beta of the high performance computing platform, Windows HPC 2008 has been released on the web. The release was announced on the Ryan Waite's entry on Windows Server Division WebLog.

Windows HPC Server 2008 combines the power of the Windows Server platform with rich, out-of-the-box functionality to help improve the productivity and reduce the complexity of your HPC environment. Windows HPC Server 2008 can efficiently scale to thousands of processing cores and provides a comprehensive set of deployment, administration, and monitoring tools that are easy to deploy, manage, and integrate with your existing infrastructure.

The programming model for Windows HPC 2008 is on a service oriented architecture. For Beta 2 you'll find 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.

For more information about trying it out, join the Windows HPC 2008 beta program at Connect: Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008 Beta. Look for build 1345.

The HPC community connects on the Windows HPC Community site with resources, blogs, and events. You can see how to get started in a video, Getting Started with Windows HPC 2008.