Slashdot Mirror
How Well Does Windows Cluster?
cascadefx asks: "I work for a mid-sized mid-western university. One of our departments has started up a small Beowulf cluster research project that he hopes to grow over time. At the moment, the thing is incredibly weak... but it is running on old hardware and is basically used for dog and pony shows to get more funding and hopefully donations of higher-end systems. It runs Linux and works, it is just not anything to write home about. Here's the problem: my understanding is that an MS rep asked what it would take to get them to switch to a Microsoft cluster. Is this possible? Are there MS clusters that do what Beowulf clusters are capable of? I thought MS clusters were for load balancing, not computation... which is the hoped-for goal of this project. Can the Slashdot crowd offer some advice? If there are MS clusters, comparisons of the capabilities would be welcome." One has to only go as far as Microsoft's site to see its current attempt at clustering, but what is the real story. Have any of you had a chance to pit a Linux Beowulf cluster against one from Microsoft? How did they compare?
You need the o/s licenses for each cluster box, plus the ads server(s) plus perhaps a VPN server.
You need the internet connector license if you want people to log in to *any* websites on a cluster versus all anonymous websites. If you want true load balancing ( versus client affinity ) you need m$ appcenter licenses for each cluster node. I managed a clustered m$ web server project at my last job. The cost in s/w licenses alone for a two node cluster skyrockets beyond all belief. -and don't forget the time lost trying to figure out what licenses you need. m$ reps can't even give you a straight answer.
Or a license that permits you to use development tools released under the cancerous GPL.
cat