In The Works: Windows For Supercomputers

Robert Accettura writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft may be feeling threatened by Linux gaining ground in the High Performance Computing (HPC) arena. As a result, they have formed a HPC group to bring windows to these systems. It makes a mention of how clustered computing may be a target. I guess the only thing better than crashing 1 computer at a time is crashing an entire room full at once."

Comments

nah, just a PR move.

[twitter]

This is a PR move. Clustering is just another thing that Windows can't do. All the Linux clusters popping up everywhere, especially at universities, demonstrate this to PHB and "influential" types. It tends to tarnish the wizz-bang image M$'s has carefully built among the clueless. Microsoft knows that PHBs will never run a cluster, a Hotmail or anything other than Word. By making one or two announcements, they can convince the clueless that M$ is all they will ever need.

Re:Windows on HPC?

[Lonewolf666]

Actually, they have done this with XP Embedded. We have tried this in a project for a windows-controlled device, and you *can* build a rather small Windows XP that has your program as "shell" instead of the usual Explorer. Maybe not quite as small as Linux in text mode, but it will do.
The claims about Internet Exploder being inextricably connected to the OS were pure FUD for the antitrust suit.

Re:Windows on HPC?

[tymbow]

I'm a Windows dood at times, but I can't see this working. The only way it might work is if the nodes are not traditional Windows installs, but rather are the core kernel and support only - ie: they have no GUI or any of the fluff and just enough to get on with doing what they have the do. The management or user land machines (or whatever the correct term is in HPC land) of course would have some GUI components. Mind you, I've wished to see a stripped down version of Windows without the GUI (or being able to start the GUI as an option ala STARTX) for ages. Maybe this is the beginning... Good luck is all I can say. They ahve a lot of work to do if it is ever to be credible.

Re:I guess Bill thinks it's time...

[AKnightCowboy]

I guess Bill thinks it's time to slow the worlds fastest computers to a crawl. Apparently they aren't crashing enough, too.

Well, unless Bill's going to introduce a version of Windows that doesn't have a Windows interface, WTF is the point? How many Beowulf nodes have you seen even plugged into a KVM? Windows is a stupid choice for a headless compute node just as Linux is a stupid choice for a home desktop.

Re:'Windows' does not necessitate a GUI

[tasinet]

" For example, with the standard Windows install"
Uhm.. *Which* standard Windows install? Xp pro? 2K sp35? 2K3 sp69?

"It is not possible to kill a process from the command line without getting a Resource Kit utility from Microsoft."
Not true. XP PRO ships with tasklist.exe and taskkill.exe.
The first lists your processes and the second kills them. The second is quite useful, too, as you can mass-exterminate processes by username or other filters. Entirelly useful if you want to delete all the spyware & other-useless-crap your computer boots up with.

Re:I guess Bill thinks it's time...

[cbiltcliffe]

Windows has come a long way since you knew you'd see the blue screen of death twice before lunch. On decent hardware it's very stable.

I run six Linux machines, and one Windows one at home. The Linux machines are running on a mixed bag of mongrel hardware, from an old Compaq Deskpro Pentium 166, to a 466 Celeron. (Old stuff, I know...)
One is just a motherboard, processor and hard drive sitting in and around a motherboard box. This is the database server for my website.
They run with virtually no maintenance, and only ever need to reboot if I do a kernel upgrade (rarely, on a server machine) or get a power failure. (I know....I'm an idiot for not having UPS's on my servers. Well, it's a home network....sue me.)
My Windows machine just got a fresh install of Windows XP on a brand new 120GB drive for a LAN party this past weekend. The install was done the Wednesday before. Three days old.
When I got to the LAN party, it wouldn't boot, as the entire registry was corrupted. One piece of it was actually completely missing.
After an hour and a half of screwing around, doing a recovery install of Windows from my CD, and generally wanting to take the Flak Gun from UT2004 to my system, I finally got it to the point where I could actually play something.
This is on hardware that runs Linux just as well as the rest of my machines.
And don't even get me started about what happens to XP when you install SP1.......

Re:'Windows' does not necessitate a GUI

[GamerGeek]

I have a feeling that the Microsoft approach to HPC will be significantly different then traditional systems. It is entirely possible that they could create a stripped down operating system, like something you would find in the embedded market, to create drone computers. These drone computers would not have a gui, not have any programs on them and do nothing but be a slave to some proprietary remote execution protocol. Then they would release a "Windows HPC server" which would administer all the drone computers with a GUI interface. They might even be able to get the drones to PXE boot from the server. To integrate with this product there would be HPC.NET with which you could write programs to harness the power of the grid/cluster. It might even be that the HPC system itself is distributed a .NET runtime. Microsoft's approach to HPC will not be what we know as clustering/grid computing today. It will be an integrated Microsoft proprietary system that will be simple to get into and hard to move away from.