Windows HPC Server 2008

High Productivity Computing With Windows

Agenda

What’s new in Windows HPC Server 2008

HPC Systems Management• Administration• Deployment• Integration with System Center

Networking and MPI

Job Scheduling• Service Oriented Architectures• Job Policies• Interoperability

Tools for Parallel Programming

Partnerships

Why Microsoft in HPC?Current Issues HPC and IT data centers merging: isolated cluster

management Developers can’t easily program for parallelism Users don’t have broad access to the increase in processing

cores and data

How can Microsoft help? Well positioned to mainstream integration of application

parallelism Have already begun to enable parallelism broadly to the

developer community Can expand the value of HPC by integrating productivity and

management tools

Microsoft Investments in HPCComprehensive software portfolio: Client, Server,

Management, Development, and CollaborationDedicated teams focused on Cluster ComputingUnified Parallel development through the Parallel Computing

InitiativePartnerships with the Technical Computing Institutes

Microsoft’s Productivity Vision for HPC

Administrator Application Developer End - User Integrated Turnkey HPC

Cluster Solution Simplified Setup and

Deployment Built-In Diagnostics Efficient Cluster Utilization Integrates with IT

Infrastructure and Policies

Integrated Tools for Parallel Programming

Highly Productive Parallel Programming Frameworks

Service-Oriented HPC Applications

Support for Key HPC Development Standards

Unix Application Migration

Seamless Integration with Workstation Applications

Integration with Existing Collaboration and Workflow Solutions

Secure Job Execution and Data Access

Windows HPC allows you to accomplish more, in less time, with reduced effort by leveraging users existing skills and integrating with the tools they are already using.

• Complete, integrated platform for computational clustering• Built on top the proven Windows Server 2008 platform• Integrated development environment

Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition

• Secure, Reliable, Tested

• Support for high performance hardware (x64, high-speed interconnects)

Microsoft HPC Pack 2008

• Job Scheduler• Resource Manager • Cluster Management• Message Passing Interface

Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008

• Integrated Solution out-of-the-box

• Leverages investment in Windows administration and tools

• Makes cluster operation easy and secure as a single system

Evaluation available from http://www.microsoft.com/hpc

Windows HPC Server 2008

What’s new for HPC in Windows Server 2008?

• High Availability Services - failover now uses iSCSI• File Systems - Self-Healing NTFS

Reliability

• Windows 64-bit Hypervisor (HyperV)• New Event Log/Diagnostics• PowerShell

Manageability

• New TCP/IP stack with Winsock Direct improvements• Memory Manager Performance• Fewer, faster, and larger disk writes for pagefile and mapped file I/O (64 KB limit removed)

• I/O prioritization• I/O priority based on the priority of the issuing thread or the explicitly set I/O priority• Used by Windows Server 2008 background tasks like indexing and Windows Defender scans

• Numerous enhancement for Non-Uniform Memory Access(NUMA)• SMB 2.0• Supports NTFS client-side symbolic links• Operations can be batched to minimize client/server round trips • Support for arbitrary buffer sizes for more efficient copies result in 30-40x throughput

improvement

Performance

What’s new in the HPC Pack 2008?

Systems Management

Job Scheduling

Networking& MPI Storage

New System Center UI PowerShell for CLI Management High Availability for Head Nodes Windows Deployment Services Diagnostics/Reporting Support for Operations Manager

Support for SOA and WCF Granular resource scheduling Improved scalability for larger

clusters New Job scheduling policies Interoperability via HPC Profile

NetworkDirect (RDMA) for MPI

Improved Network Configuration Wizard

Shared Memory MS-MPI for multi-core

MS-MPI integrated with Windows Event Tracing

Improved iSCSI SAN & parallel file system Support in Win2008

Improved Server Message Block ( SMB v2)

New 3rd party parallel system file support for Windows

New Memory Cache Vendors

Spring 2008, NCSA, #239472 cores, 68.5 TF, 77.7%

Fall 2007, Microsoft, #1162048 cores, 11.8 TF, 77.1%

Spring 2007, Microsoft, #1062048 cores, 9 TF, 58.8%

Spring 2006, NCSA, #130896 cores, 4.1 TF

Spring 2008, Umea, #405376 cores, 46 TF, 85.5%

30% efficiencyimprovement

Windows HPC Server 2008

Windows Compute Cluster 2003

Winter 2005, Microsoft4 procs, 9.46 GFlops

Spring 2008, Aachen, #1002096 cores, 18.8 TF, 76.5%

Windows HPC Server 2008

Location Champaign, ILHardware – Machines Dell blade system with 1,200

PowerEdge 1955 dual-socket, quad-core Intel Xeon 2.3 GHz processors

Hardware – NetworkingInfiniBand and GigE

Number of Compute Nodes 1184Total Number of Cores 9,472 cores

Total Memory 9.6 terabytesParticulars of for current Linpack Runs Best Linpack rating 68.5 TFPs Best cluster efficiency 77.7%For Comparison…

Linpack rating from November 2007 Top500 run (#14) on the same hardware

68.5 TFPs

Cluster efficiency from November 2007 Top500 run (#XX) on the same hardware

69.9%

Typical Top500 efficiency for Clovertown motherboards w/ IB regardless of Operating System

65-77% 7.8% improvement in efficiency on the same

hardware running Linux

About 4 hours to deploy

Ready for Prime-time#23

Summer 2008

Systems Management

• Simple to setup and manage in a familiar environment– Turnkey cluster solutions through OEMs– Simplify system and application deployment

• Base images, patches, drivers, applications

• Focus on ease of management– Comprehensive diagnostics , troubleshooting

and monitoring– Familiar, flexible and “pivotal” management

interface– Equivalent command line support for

unattended management• Scale up

– Scale deployment, administration, infrastructure

– Head node failover– Cluster usage reporting– Compute node filtering

• Better integration with enterprise management

– Patch Management– System Center Operations Management– PowerShell– Windows 2008 high Availability Services

Improved Efficiency for the Systems Admin

Head Node High Availability

– Next generation of cluster services– Major improvement in

configuration validation and management

• HPC Pack Includes– Setup integration with Failover

Clustering Services• Head Node and Failover Node set

up with SQL Failover Cluster• Job Scheduler services failover

– Management console linked to Windows Server Failover Management console

Shared Disk

Private Network

Head nodeWin2008 Enterprise

Clustered SQL Server

Failover Head nodeWin2008 Enterprise

Clustered SQL Server

WindowsFailover Clustered

• Eliminates single point of failure with support for high availability• Requires Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Failover Clustering Services

System Center Operations Manager for HPC

A more productive HPC environment• Canned reports for end-user perspective monitoring• Security logs analysis and reporting

Scalable Monitoring• Monitor apps running in a scale out, distributed environment• Scale using tiered management servers• Agent-less Monitoring

Increased Efficiency and Control• More secure by design• Integration with Active Directory• Extended solution with Management Packs

Networking & MPI

NetworkDirect

• Priorities– Comparable with hardware-optimized MPI

stacks• Focus on MPI-Only Solution for version 2

– Verbs-based design for close fit with native, high-perf networking interfaces

– Coordinated w/ Win Networking team’s long-term plans

• Implementation– MS-MPIv2 capable of 4 networking paths:

• Shared Memory between processors on a motherboard

• TCP/IP Stack (“normal” Ethernet)• Winsock Direct (and SDP)

for sockets-based RDMA• New RDMA networking interface

– HPC team partners with networking IHVs to develop/distribute drivers for this new interface

User Mode

Kernel Mode

TCP/Ethernet Networking

Ker

nel B

y-P

ass

MPI AppSocket-Based App

MS-MPI

Windows Sockets (Winsock + WSD)

Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareNetworking Hardware

Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareHardware Driver

Networking HardwareNetworking

HardwareMini-port Driver

TCP

NDIS

IP

Networking HardwareNetworking HardwareUser Mode Access Layer

Networking HardwareNetworking

HardwareWinSock Direct Provider

Networking Hardware

Networking Hardware

NetworkDirect Provider

RDMA Networking

OS Component

CCP Component

IHV Component(ISV) App

A new RDMA networking interface built for speed and stability

High Speed Networking Technologies

Myrinet, In

finiband, 10GigE

1Gig Ethernet

100MB Ethernet

Ban

dwid

th

Availability

CiscoVoltaireQlogic

Open Fabrics

Myricom

NetEffect

Job Scheduling

What’s new in in Job Scheduling

Broader application support

Expanded Job Policies

Support for Job Templates

Improve interoperability with mixed IT infrastructure

Broader Application Support

App.exe App.exe Service(DLL)

Service(DLL)

Service(DLL)

Service(DLL)App.exe App.exe

Engineering Applications

Structural AnalysisCrash Simulation

Oil & Gas Applications

Reservoir simulationSeismic Processing

Life Science Applications

Structural AnalysisCrash Simulation

Financial Services

Portfolio analysisRisk analysisComplianceActual

Excel

PricingModeling

Interactive Cluster Applications

Your applications here

Job Scheduler

Resource allocationProcess Launching

Resource usage trackingIntegrated MPI execution

Integrated Security

WCF Brokers

WS Virtual Endpoint ReferenceRequest load balancing

Integrated Service activationService life time management

Integrated WCF Tracing

2003 (focusing on batch jobs) 2008 (focusing on Interactive jobs)

+

Track service resource usageRun service as the user

Restart upon failureSupport application tracing

Balance the requestsGrow & shrink service poolProvide WS Interoperability

Node heat maps, Performance monitor, & Event logs

Job statusService usage

reportTracing logs

Occurring on the

back end

Admin Experience

User Experience

ControlPath

Data path

Job statusService usage

reportTracing logs

Job SchedulerRouter

JobService

Job

WCF Broker

Client

Redundant Head Nodes

…

Compute Nodes

n Service Instances

WCF Broker Nodes

Send/Receive Messages

3

Create a Session

1

Start Broker

Service Instance

Node Manage

r

Service Instance

Node Manage

r

Service Instance

Node Manage

r2

Service-Oriented Jobs

• Encapsulates application resource requirements, job prioritization and resource allocation policies

• Created by the admin, ACL’ed to a set of users so that the resources can be delivered to the users in ways that meet the organization’s business priorities

What are they?

• Define the Value range: defines the range of values that the term can take. The value range can be empty. If the value provided at the job submission is not in the defined range, the job is rejected.

• Provide a default value: if a profile defines the default value, the user is not required to specify the job term

How to Define?

Job Templates

Job Templates

Permission to Submit

Permission to Submit

Permission to Submit

Cluster Resources

Cluster Resources

Cluster Resources

Job Submission

Job Template

Job Submission

Job Submission

Job Template

Job Template

Admin createsresource

partitions by creating job submission

policies

1

Admission control Descriptions Definitions

Runtime to be mandatory A supercomputing center wanting to enforce the runtime for all the jobs

Profile: defaultRuntime:requiredDefault: noneUsers: All

Multiple Line of Businesses (LOBs) sharing a cluster

Admin would like to apportion resources to different nodes

Profile LOB1:Users: user1, user2Priority: normal,Select:”sas && ib && processorspeed > 2000000”Uniform: switchIdRange: N/AProfile LOB2:Users: user3, user4Askednodes:host2 host3 host 4

Power user job priority Power user userA can use all the nodes in the cluster

Profile PowerUser:Users: userAAskednodes: AllPriority: HighestRange:

Users submit using different

templates

2

Example Policies

Five New Scheduling Policies

• Resource Matching– Job submit /nodegroup:appX myapp.exe

• Job Admission Policies via Templates– Job submit /template:groupY myapp.exe

• Multi-Level Processor Allocation– job submit /numsockets:4-8 myapp.exe

• Adaptive Allocation (Grow/Shrink)– job submit myapp.exe

• Preemption– Cluscfg PreemptionEnabled=true

GigE

Blade Chassis

8-coreservers

InfiniBand

16-coreservers 32-core

servers

InfiniBandInfiniBand

GigE

10 GigE

10 GigE

A big model (requiresLarge memory machines)

An ISV application (requiresNodes where the application is

installed)

MATLAB

C0 C1

M

C2 C3

M

Quad-core

C0 C1

M

C2 C3

|||||||| ||||||||

|||||||| ||||||||

M

M

M

M

M

M

M

M

P0 P1

P2 P3

32-core

IO IO

4-way Structural Analysis MPI Job

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLABMulti-threaded application

(requires machine with manyCores)

MATLAB

NumaAware

CapacityAware

ApplicationAware

Scenario: Placement via Job Contextnode grouping, job templates, filters

Scenario : Memory Bus Saturation

Node 1

S0

P0 P1

P2 P3

S1

P0 P1

P2 P3

S2

P0 P1

P2 P3

S3

P0 P1

P2 P3

Node 2

S0

P0 P1

P2 P3

S1

P0 P1

P2 P3

S2

P0 P1

P2 P3

S3

P0 P1

P2 P3

J1 J1

J1 J3

J2 J2

J2 J2

J2 J2

J2 J2

J2 J2

J2 J2

J2 J2

J1: /numsockets:3 /exclusive: falseJ3: /numsockets:3 /exclusive: false

J2: /numsockets:14 /exclusive: false

Policy: Multi-level Allocation

Scenario: mixed workload

Faster turnaround for high priority jobsUses Grow/Shrink policy, Preemptive Scheduling Policies

Job 1 Tasks

Job 2 Tasks

Job 3 High Priority

Pro

cess

ors

Time

Job 3 getsSubmitted

Job 3 getsCompletes

Policy: Priority Resource Allocation

Scenario: Long Tail Parametric Apps

Addresses “Long Tail” problem for jobs with many tasks of varying runtimeImprove cluster utilization by giving nodes where they are needed and to the highest priority jobs

Job 1 Tasks

Job 2 Tasks

Job 3 Tasks

Pro

cess

ors

Time

Idle Processors

Idle Processors

Idle Processors

Policy: Grow/Shrink Resource Allocation

Job Policies SummaryFeatures Description Version

Priority FCFS

Jobs are placed in the queue based on priority & submission Time. Jobs are in the queue on a First-Come First-Serve basis in the order they are submitted, except that ALL Highest Priority jobs are ahead of all Above Normal Priority jobs which are ahead of all Normal Priority jobs etc . . .

Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008

BackfillingResources are reserved based on resource allocations. If the Job Scheduler identifies open windows for resources within the reserved timelines, it can backfill by selecting smaller jobs for execution within this window

Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008

Exclusive Scheduling

When a job is “Exclusive” no other job can run on a node with that job. When a task is “Exclusive” no other task can run on a node with that task.

Window CCS 2003Windows HPC 2008

Resource Match-making

Schedule against admin defined groups of nodes. We allow scheduling based on a limited amount of hardware properties and ordering by different hardware properties.

Windows HPC 2008

Multi-level Compute Resource Allocation

The Job Scheduler optimally places memory-intensive jobs to avoid contention of memory, delivering maximum and predictable application performance.

Windows HPC 2008

PreemptionPre-emption occurs when high-priority jobs take resources away from lower-priority jobs which are already running. Windows HPC 2008

Grow & Shrink Scheduling

A job may not have “uneven resource requirements” it may just need 100 resources to run 1000 tasks. With Grow Shrink, the job scheduler can give it 1 resource to get it started, and then additional resources as they become available. Once it has 100 resources and less than 100 tasks, job scheduler can begin taking away the un-needed resources.

Windows HPC 2008

Interoperability & Open Grid Forum

What is it? •A draft OGSA (Open Grid Services Architectures) interoperability standard for batch job scheduler task submission and management

•Based on web services standards (HTTP, XML, SOAP)

What is its value?•Enables integration of HPC applications executing on different platforms and schedulers via web services standards

What’s the Status?•Passed the public comment period

•Working on new extensions

Windows Cluster

Window Center

Windows Center

LSF / PBS / SGE / Condor

Linux, AIX, Solaris HPUX, Windows

Job Scheduling SummaryTools Windows CCS 2003 Windows HPC 2008

End User Tools

1. CLI2. Job Manager UI

1. Powershell CLI 2. New Job Manager UI with built-in

parametric support & custom job filtering

Admin Tools1. Cluscfg for configuration2. clusrun

1. Configuration UI2. Enhanced clusrun

Developer Tools

1. C# API2. COM API

1. WCF Integration2. Scalable API with Rowset and eventing

support3. Standard Job Submission Interface (HPC

Profile)

Scheduling Policies

1. FCFS 2. Backfill3. Exclusive Scheduling4. License scheduling

1. Resource matchmaking2. Job Template3. Multi-level processor allocation4. Adaptive allocation / grow & shrink 5. Preemption

Parallel Programming

Parallel Programming• Available Now

– Development and Parallel debugging in Visual Studio– 3rd party Compilers, Debuggers, Runtimes etc..

available

• Emerging Technologies – Parallel Extensions to .NET Framework

– LINQ/PLINQ – natural OO language for SQL queries in .NET

– Task Parallel libraries– currently CTP June ‘08

Compilers and Languages

• Visual C++• Visual C#•Visual Basic•Visual F#

• Intel C++• Intel Fortran• PGI C++• PGI Fortran

Debuggers

• WinDbg•VS Debugger (MC & MPI)•Allinea Visual Studio plug-in (MPI)•MPI/Event Tracing for Windows•PGI MPI Debugger

Profilers• Visual Studio Profiler• Vtune• Code Analyst

•MPI/Event Tracing for Windows• PGI MPI Profiler

Analyzers

• Marmot• MPI/Event Tracing for Windows• Vampir

• Intel Trace Collector/Analyzer• Intel Thread Checker• Utah U MPI model checker

Parallel Programming Models

• OpenMP•MPI (MS, Intel, HP MPI Libs)•MPI.NET•MPI.C++

• PFx: Tark Paralell Library• PFx: Parallel LINQ• SOA on Cluster•Intel Thread Building Blocks

Math Libraries• Intel MKL• AMD IMSL•Visual Numerics

• NAG• Other OSS mathlibs

Parallel Program Tools

Version ComparisonFeature Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Windows HPC Server 2008

Operating system Windows Server 2003 SP1 Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter

Processor Type X64 (AMD64 or Intel EM64T) X64 (AMD64 or Intel EM64T)

Memory 32 GB (Compute Cluster Edition) 128 GB (HPC Edition)

Node Deployment Remote Installation Services(RIS) Windows Deployment Services

Head Node Availability N/A Windows Failover Clustering and SQL Server Failover Clustering

Management Basic node and job management Integrated node and job management, grouping, monitoring at-a-glance, diagnostics

Network Topology Network Configuration Wizard Improved Network Configuration Wizard

MS-MPI Winsock Direct-based Network Direct-based. New shared memory implementation for multicore processors

Scheduler Command line or GUIIntegrated in management console, with full support for Windows PowerShell scripting and legacy command-line UI scripts from v1. Greatly improved speed and scalability

Programmability Support for Batch or MPI based jobsAdded support for interactive Service Oriented Applications (SOA) using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

Reporting N/A Integrated into Management console

Monitoring Rely on Windows. No cluster specific support. Heat map on cluster or node group. Per node charts. Cluster-wide performance overview

Diagnostics N/A In the box verification tests and performance tests. Store, filter, and view test results and history

NAS and Clustered

NAS

Shared File Systems or SAN

file systems

Parallel File Systems

Agg

rega

te (

Mb/

s/co

re)

Number of cores in cluster

Greater Sophistication

• Windows Server 2003 • Windows Server 2008 …

• HP - PolyServe • Ibrix - Fusion• Quantum - StorNext• SANbolic – Melio file

system

• IBM – GPFS• Panasas – Active

Scale• SUN - Lustre

HPC Storage Solutions

Release Schedule

• RC1– Publicly Available• RTM – Early Fall 2008

March 2008

Beta 1 CTP 1 Beta 2 RTM

Nov 2007

May2008

Fall2008

April2008

CTP2

Industry Focused Partners

Windows HPC Server 2008 Offerings

Windows HPC Server 2008

SQL Server 2008 Express

3rd Party

Systems Center Operations Manager

HPC Pack

Windows HPC Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Systems Center Configurations Manager

• Turnkey Solutions up to 1000 nodes

• HPC Pack• Management• Deployment• Job Scheduling

• 3rd Party packages for enhanced job scheduling, policies

Basic Turnkey High Availability Enterprise Management

• No single point of failure• Windows Server 2008

Enterprise for head node high availability

• SQL Server 2008 Enterprise for high availability

• Scale to many 1000’s of nodes• System Center Operations

Manager for enhanced monitoring

• System Center Configuration Manager for enhanced deployment and patch management

Windows Server 2008 Core• Lightweight small footprint/No UI/CLI• HyperV• No .NET Framework

SQL Server 2008 Standard

HPC Pack

3rd Party

SQL Server 2008 Standard

HPC Pack

3rd Party

Windows HPC Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

Windows HPC Roadmap

V1Summer 2006

Service Pack 1 Performance & Reliability Improvements Support for Windows Server 2003 SP2 Support for Windows Deployment Services Vista Support for CCP Client tools

Mainstream HPC

SP1 & Web2007

Mainstream High Performance Computing on Windows platform Interoperability: Web Services for Job Scheduler, Parallel File

Systems Applications: Service Oriented, Batch, .NET Turnkey: Enabling pre-configured OEM solutions Scale: Large scale, non-uniform clusters, diagnostics framework

Version 2H2 2008

Mainstream High Performance Computing on Windows platform Simple to set up and manage in familiar environment Integrated with existing Windows infrastructure

Web Releases MOM Pack PowerShell for CLI Tools for Accelerating Excel

• Microsoft HPC Web site – Evaluate Today!– http://www.microsoft.com/hpc

• Windows HPC Community site– http://www.windowshpc.net

• Windows HPC Techcenter– http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/hpc/default.aspx

• HPC on MSDN– http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/hpc

• Windows Server Compare website– http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/default.mspx

Resources

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.

• The MPI forum is an international forum that defines the MPI standard. Since 1992 is has defined MPI 1.0 1.2 and 2.0 standards. This standard body is important as over the years MPI has become the de-facto parallel programming interface/paradigm.

• The MPI forum has come together this year, 2008 in an effort to renew and update the MPI standard to put MPI 2.1, 2.2 and 3.0 standards. The MPI forum is determined goal is to answer the world demand for significant features which will enable MPI to better handle the scope of tomorrow’s systems and the breath of applications using MPI.

• The MPI forum body includes representatives from many software companies, Universities, MPI implementers and hardware vendors. The forum meets in person every two months to discuss proposals, issues at hand and vote on the outcome. Microsoft takes a leading role in this forum leading several workgroup and hosting some of the forum meetings.

• The MPI forum goal is to release MPI 2.1 standard by the end of 2008, MPI 2.1 by mid 2009 and MPI 3.0 by the end of 2010.

• The unofficial wiki page web site; you can find MPI workgroups information on these pages.

– https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web

• The official MPI web site– http://www.mpi-forum.org

• The meetings info web pages– http://meetings.mpi-forum.org

About the MPI Forum

Financial Services Firm Scales Fast-Growing Hedging Application on Low-Cost Windows Cluster

Fund Manager Improves Performance, Eases Administration with Computing Cluster

“It’s like having an incredibly powerful CPU at your finger tips. The ease of use creates a kind of transparency where the line between the desktop and the compute cluster no longer exists.” -

Christopher Mellen, Head of Research, Grinham Managed Funds

Investment Bank Improves Competitive Edge with High Performance Computing

Investment Bank Plans to Boost IT Performance, Reduce Hardware Costs with New Server Technology

“From now on, whatever we will be testing, developing, or evaluating will be based on Windows Server 2008—whether it’s business-driven, transition-driven, or research-driven.” - Sorin Manta,

Manager, Windows Server Infrastructure, Technology and Operations, BMO Capital Markets

IT Services Company Develops Risk and Trading Systems on Integrated Platform

ISV Opts Against Open Source, Doubles Revenue with Office Business Application“By using Microsoft technologies as the foundation for our development, we’re producing an easy-

to-use, understandable, low-cost offering that can be confidently adopted by financial services customers.” - Graham Twaddle, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Corporate Modelling

Windows HPC Success Stories: Financial Services

Leading HPC Vendor Eases Adoption for Customers, with New Windows-Based Offerings

“Many companies see value from HPC, but they have little to no experience with Linux… We need to provide a way for them to advance their theories and research using what they already know.” -

Beverly Bernard, Product Manager, SGI

Switch from Linux to Windows Increases Value of HPC for Golf Equipment“Manufacturer jobs that took 40 hours are now down to 8, enabling engineers to test and refine

their designs much faster.” - John Loo, Design Systems Senior Manager, Callaway Golf

Shipbuilder Introduces HPC on Microsoft to Develop High Value-Added Ship Types

64-bit Compute Cluster Performs Crash Analysis, Aides in Safety Compliance

Boeing Tests High Performance Computing Cluster, Improves Processing Time “Because we develop intelligent graphics software in a Windows environment, it makes sense to work with an HPC cluster that supports that framework.” - John F. Bremer Advanced Computing

Technologist, Intelligent Graphics Group Boeing

Manufacturer Provides Engineers with Easy-to-Use, High-Performance Computing Solution

Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing

Engineers at French Production Company Improve Productivity with New Business Solution

Microsoft High Performance Computing Solution Helps Oil Company Increase the Productivity of Research Staff

“With Windows Compute Cluster Server, setup time has decreased from several hours—or even days for large clusters—to just a few minutes, regardless of cluster size.” - IT Manager, Petrobras

CENPES Research Center

Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing

Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) in South Africa adopts Windows HPC Technology Over Linux.

Australian Company Delivers Solutions Faster, Expands Capabilities with HPC Solution

“I came in with zero knowledge of Windows HPC Server 2008 deployment, although I knew a lot about Linux. Within a couple of days, I was deploying Windows-based nodes.” - Dr. Simon

Beard ,Systems Specialist, On Demand Group, ISA Technologies

NASCAR Team Turns to High Performance Computing to Sharpen Competitive Edge

“With simulation times reduced from 24 hours to about 30 minutes, we can run multiple simulations for each race and better tune the simulations for each car, track, and set of track

conditions.” - Mark PaxtonResearch and Development Engineering Manager, NASCAR Team, Chip Ganassi Racing

SIMULIA Delivers Simulation Solutions Faster with Windows HPC Server 2008, and Sees the Advanced Programming Tool Set as a Critical Asset.

Florida Boosts Productivity, Cuts Run Times with High-Performance Computing Cluster

Easier Cluster Management Helps Northrop Grumman Improve Productivity“Windows Compute Cluster Server has caused a paradigm shift. Before I had to limit my problem

size because I ran out of resources. Now I feel enabled to think bigger.” - Thi Pham, PhD, Systems Engineer, Space Technology Sector, Northrop Grumman

Windows HPC Success Stories: Manufacturing

Simulation Software on x64 Compute Clusters Boosts Performance, Reduces Costs

Software Company Delivers 64-Bit Fidelity and Speed for Computer-Aided Engineering

French Yacht Team Streamlines Design with Secure and Familiar Technology

“The transition from Linux to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 was flawless. In fact, it was so easy we didn’t even notice a change in the office.” - Bernard Nivelt, Lead Designer, AREVA

Challenge

Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research

Windows HPC Server 2008 Ranks at 23 Among the World’s TOP500 Largest Supercomputers with 68.5 TFlops and 77.7 Percent Efficiency. (June 2008)

“The performance of Windows HPC Server 2008 has yielded efficiencies that are among the highest we’ve seen for this class of machine.” - Robert Pennington, Deputy Director, National

Center for Supercomputing Applications

The Umeå Cluster Achieved a LINPACK Score of 46.04 TFlops and 85.6 Percent Efficiency, Making Their System the Second Largest Windows Cluster Ever

Deployed and the Fastest Academic Cluster in Sweden. (June 2008)

Leading Supercomputing Center in Italy Eases Use, Improves Access with New Cluster

“It will be a big benefit for us to offer researchers a high-performance computing resource with a familiar interface and a natural, user-friendly way to use the cluster from home.” - Dr. Marco Voli,

CINECA

Facility for Breakthrough Science Seeks to Expand User Base with Windows-Based HPC

Researchers’ Move from Linux to Windows Yields Performance Gains, New Capabilities

“We were quite surprised when, without any optimization, the new Windows–based HPC system outperformed our highly optimized Linux cluster.” – Valerie Daggett, Professor, University of

Washington

National IT Center Improves Customer Service with High-Performance Compute Cluster.

“Using Windows for high-performance computing means we can offer our customers real added value.”  - Uwe Wössner, Head of the Visualization Department, High Performance Computing

Center Stuttgart

Early Detection of Cancer One Step Closer to Solution with Microsoft, Dell and Intel“The user interface and structure of the Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server make

managing a large, high-performance computing cluster far less daunting than with other operating systems.” - Dr Robert Moritz, Manager of the Proteomics Facility at LICR and Director of the

Australian Proteomics Computational Facility

Inventor of Beowulf Cluster Exposes Young Minds to High-Performance Computing

Portuguese University Accelerates Cancer Research with High-Performance Computing

Microsoft Researchers Boost Task Productivity Fiftyfold with Cluster Server Software

Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research

Environmental Scientists Join Forces Against Climate Change with Integrated Platform

“This is the first time we’ve delivered an integrated solution whereby researchers can sit in front of a Web browser and drive it to completely different scenarios using the data and models of

different institutions.” - Simon Cox, Professor of Computational Methods at the University of Southampton and Technical Director for Genie

Supercomputing Solution Reduces IT Administration Needs at University of Cincinnati Genome Research Institute.

Research-Driven University Breaks Down Barriers to High-Performance Computing

Scientists Accelerate Research and Insight with Accessible, High-Performance Computing Environment

“Even students who come from a Linux background and are using Microsoft developer tools for the first time are finding the change to be positive.” - Iain Buchan, Director of the Northwest Institute

for BioHealth Informatics at the University of Manchester

University of British Columbia (Vancouver) selects Windows HPC technology over Linux for Masters of Digital Media graduate program

Windows HPC Success Stories: Science, Education, Research

Digital Media School Deploys Render Farm Technology, Cuts Compute Runtime By Days

“Before we had render farm, every student rendered on his or her own PC, so sharing images and viewing the current status was not easy. Now we can decide how many PCs will render a particular image. On 32 machines it takes just a couple of hours—this is a huge reduction in

time.” - Ng Kian Bee, Deputy Director, Games & Digital Entertainment of NYP’s SIDM

Digital Marketing Firm Installs Microsoft HPC Solution to Simplify IT Operations

Windows HPC Success Stories: Digital Content Creation