Goodbye Beowulf? Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition en route

Besides the native Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL powerhouse, there's always been one other place the *nixes and workalikes have had Windows consistently bested—clustered computing (some like to call it supercomputing, we like to call it another day at the office). Well, we're not sure if the Beowulf cluster's days are numbered, but Microsoft's aiming to have their latest Server 2003 variant ready by November, the awkwardly named Windows Server 2003 Compute (no r) Cluster Edition. (Don't tell us its codename is Grendel.) The system will also come with "cycle harvesting" capabilities, SETI/folding@home-like techniques for using spare processor power in idle workstations to speed up massive parallellized computations. Man, would that ever come in handy this month; we're going to need some serious horsepower to compute our deductions for all the gadgets we bought in the 2004 tax year.

[Via CNet]

[Carmi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

That's a lovely thought. But who's going to pay for the significantly higher licensing fees of a commercially-focused clustering environment?

It bears mentioning that the vast majority of these clusters are built by rather resource-poor academic institutions. Using an open-source OS allows them to focus more of their money on the hardware and development, and less on the licensing.

Carmi
http://writteninc.blogspot.com

[Ben Skinner @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Thats one massive power bill

[ClusterJazz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Heyheyhey,

Someone's been sleeping in class. Actually, a lot of the cluster's you don't hear so much about - but be sure they're on the Top500 list - are deployed by major oil companies, major finance companies and major life sciences companies.
This is a huge market already, and these companies don't rely on a 'we built this OS ourselves' approach as these clusters are becoming more and more vital in their operations. So they're shelling out large amounts of money on OS license fees, maintenance agreements in addition to commercial MPI and cluster management systems, storage solutions ++. Which is exactly why M$ wants to get into this market...

[Justin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:04AM]

Don't make the mistake of believing that Microsoft doesn't understand who their competitors are. They know they're going up against Linux/Beowulf.

Did you even have a look at the product page?

Anyone notice the link to Cactus?

Did you notice Jim Gray's involvement?