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Microsoft Finally up for Distributed Computing?
ReeprFlame writes "eWeek has reported overhearing Microsoft's plans to finally get into the distributed computing market. Considering that the Windows platform has never had the ability to parallel compute in the past, it leaves great potential to the company's operating system development. From current *nix systems we have today, such a grid proves very useful, especially in the serving arena. However, we are unsure of Microsoft's target for the software. Would it be an addition to home users computers as well as the server versions of Windows? As of now it is unclear, but Microsoft probably will bring this situation to life in the near future since it does hold alot of power for them over other platforms."
I guess Microsoft is imagining a Be-- stop! put down that bat!
Does this make any sense? The rest of the summary is equally nonsensical.
Lasers Controlled Games!
There are millions of Windows machines out there participating in a distributed SPAM relaying network.
I imagine if Microsoft 'enahances' Windows to do this even easier, it'll make it even easier for spammers to write the next-generation spamming-joe-jobbing apps.
Kudos, Microsoft!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Huh? Mac OS X is also very GUI-oriented, but that doesn't make it bad for clusters. I've only read positive feedbacks about Apple's Xgrid. http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/
So that's not really a reason why a Windows Cluster won't make sense.
Licensing costs are also not the biggest concern from big corporations.
The NT kernel is well designed.
The rest of the OS has way to much backwards compatibility to be able to strip things out.
Linux can run on clusters because you can install only those chunks that you need. in Windows every processor would also have to run the entire GUI. Even if it is never used.
Why do you think Longhorn is getting a full command line shell setup?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
In this case, Mac OS X is sitting on top of a UNIX kernel -- a modified FreeBSD. Which means all of those parts aren't GUI oriented, and you get all of the same benefits of a UNIX with all of the eye candy that Apple knows how to make work well.
Windows seems to have been built with a model that expects everything to want to be GUI based and it includes a lot of stuff geared towards that. As has been pointed out elsewhere, Windows seems to be taking networking and other stuff as add-ons without having been accounted for in the first place. Though that's probably changing somewhat over time.
In the case of OS/X, it will happily do both functions without saddling the non-GUI stuff with extra baggage.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Windows already has distributed computing build in, with transaction support which controls cross-machine/process transactions, it's available in every windows box (2000/XP/2003). Furthermore it has object-level security settings, based on roles, integrated in for example Active Directory so you can control which user can access/run which object.
:-/
'Grid computing!!!111'... it's a buzzword. The technology is already available for many years, however not a lot of software uses it, if you look at the many many applications available.
Considering that the Windows platform has never had the ability to parallel compute in the past, it leaves great potential to the company's operating system development.
I don't know how much 'ReeprFlame' knows about windows, but it can't be a lot.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
The NT kernel is modular and well-design, I can't imagine that it would be more troublesome than it was for Linux (and probably significantly less work).
I have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to networking and security in NT, sure the WIN32 part is troublesome to keep secure, but NT in itself has no such problems.
Flamebait? Please mods, this is the reason slashdot is losing readership. It's difficult to have a decent discussion, when all opposing views to the group opinion (right or wrong) are essentially censored down to obscurity.
Windows has proven time and again to be designed for stand-alone situation. All network and security add-ons have shown to be just that; add-ons..
huh? COM+ is designed to be a cross-machine/process object layer with security build in PER OBJECT, even per interface. Role based, AD controlled.
Stand alone? Add-ons? ever looked closely at windows 2000 or even NT 4? No, not the shell, the core OS.
Distributed computing simply isn't part of the base design. Morphing Windows into something it isn't will once again be a task for their marketing department, not engineering.
You have definitely totally no clue whatsoever, and with you the moderators who modded you 'insightful'. 'Bullshit' would have been more like it.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
in Windows every processor would also have to run the entire GUI. Even if it is never used.
No. First of all you can set cmd.exe as the shell instead of explorer.exe, second of all, if you don't hook up a monitor or log in, the shell is swapped out pretty fast, and doesn't get any cpu cycles.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
This is a load of horseshit.
First: The WindowsNT line (WinNT, Win2k, Win2k3 and WinXP) isn't descended from DOS.
Second: WindowsNT had a rich file and process permissions and auditing model baked in at a low level that exceeded (and may still exceed) what Linux has today. The problem is that the default OS config was and is relatively permissive.
still his point is that it doesn't make sense, although they *can* be used for clustering, they are simply not the right tool for the job. This is not simply my opinion, the market has spoken on this:
...
They cost money, they provide no advantages over linux or bsd, and they would propably need much more human hours for their administration.
besides, as i understand the article, this is mostly a development thingie, and some sort of central application management service. And with a possible* release date somewhere in the end of the decade it just doesn't seem important. I don't understand why this story was even posted
*possible as in "maybe it will be released" not as in "maybe in the end of the decade"
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle