Second Service Pack Ties High Performance Computing to Azure
The second ‘service pack’ (SP2) for Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 focuses on providing customers with a great experience when expanding their on-premises clusters to Windows Azure, and we’ve also included some features for on-premises clusters.
You can download the service pack at HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 download.
Key new features:
- HPC direct integration with the Windows Azure APIs to provide a simplified experience for provisioning compute nodes in Windows Azure for applications and data.
- Tuned MPI stack for the Windows Azure network, support for Windows Azure VM role (currently in beta)
- Automatic configuration of the Windows Azure Connect preview to allow Windows Azure based applications to reach back to enterprise file server and license servers via virtual private networks.
For details, see the HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 (SP2) Released on the Windows Azure blog.
Future Roadmap
In the coming days, we will release a second beta for building data intensive applications (previously codenamed Dryad). We’re now calling it ‘LINQ to HPC’. LINQ has been an incredibly successful programming model and with LINQ to HPC we allow developers to write data intensive applications using Visual Studio and LINQ and deploy those data intensive applications to clusters running Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 SP2.
About Windows Server HPC
Windows HPC delivers the power of supercomputing in a familiar environment.
High Performance Computing gives analysts, engineers and scientists the computation resources they need to make better decisions, fuel product innovation, speed research and development, and accelerate time to market. Some examples of HPC usage include: decoding genomes, animating movies, analyzing financial risks, streamlining crash test simulations, modeling global climate solutions and other highly complex problems.
To evaluate Windows Server HPC, see Try Windows HPC Server Today.
Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation
