FAQ

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Windows HPC Server 2008 combines the power of a Windows 64-bit Server platform with out-of-the-box functionality to improve the productivity, and reduce the complexity, of your HPC environment. Windows HPC Server 2008 provides a comprehensive set of deployment, administration, job scheduling, and monitoring tools that are easy to deploy, manage, and integrate with your existing Windows infrastructure.

Windows HPC Server 2008 is comprised of two DVDs. The first DVD is Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition, and the second disk is the Microsoft HPC Pack 2008—a combination of interfaces, utilities, and management infrastructure that makes up the Windows HPC Server 2008 solution.

Windows HPC Server 2008 is the successor to Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

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Both Windows HPC Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition are licensed solely for running clustered HPC (high performance computing) applications. Clustered HPC applications solve complex computational problems or a set of closely related computational problems in parallel, typically using several servers as a group (or cluster). You may run the server software for the primary purpose of running clustered HPC applications, and in conjunction with other software only as necessary to permit security, storage, performance enhancement, and systems management of any devices in the cluster when running the other software on a cluster node for the sole and dedicated purpose of supporting the clustered HPC applications.

You may not use the server software for any other purpose. For example, except as permitted in above, you may not use the server software as a general purpose server, database server, Web server, e-mail server, print server, or file server.

Please see www.microsoft.com/hpc for more information.

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Purchasing information for Windows HPC Server 2008 is available on www.microsoft.com/hpc. You can also download the trial version by following the instructions on the www.microsoft.com/hpc page.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 is available in English, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. The Microsoft HPC Pack will also install on any of the Windows Server 2008 x64-based operating systems (Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter). When installed on an edition of Windows that does not match the HPC Pack languages, the HPC Pack user interfaces will be displayed in English.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 is licensed per server. The software is licensed based on the number of instances of server software that you run. You may run, at any one time, one instance of the server software in one physical operating system environment and one instance in one virtual operating system environment on the licensed server.

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Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition, which comes as part of Windows HPC Server 2008, is licensed per server and does not require CALs. If you are using the Microsoft HPC Pack with a different edition of Windows you will need to comply with the licensing programs for that edition of Windows.

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You may choose to purchase Windows HPC Server 2008 or the individual components, Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition or the Microsoft HPC Pack 2008, separately.

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Hardware prerequisites are the same as for other editions of Windows Server 2008. The head node and all compute nodes must be x64 computers.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 supports 128 GB of memory.

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Yes. A single workstation can have both the Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Windows HPC Server 2008 client tools installed. The client tools are specific to the version of Windows HPC product—Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 or Windows HPC Server. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 client utilities can only be used to interact with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. The Windows HPC Server 2008 client utilities can only be used with a Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 can only be installed on x86 64-bit hardware. Itanium (IA-64) hardware is not supported.

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There are no plans at this time to release a 32-bit version of Windows HPC Server 2008.

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Although Windows HPC Server 2008 requires 64-bit computers for use as compute nodes, 32-bit applications running on 64-bit compute nodes is a supported configuration. The 32-bit application will not be able to use the larger memory-addressing available on the compute node, but it will run. Developers will find both 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Message Passing Interface (MPI) libraries included in the Windows HPC Server 2008 Software Development Kit (SDK). For issues with third-party 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit server, please contact your software vendor for support.

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Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 supports failover clustering services, included with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter, to provide a second head node for improved cluster availability. However, Windows Failover Clustering is not a feature of Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition. In order to take advantage of failover clustering, appropriate licenses and media of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, or Datacenter, will need to be acquired and installed for the two cluster head nodes.

Additionally, licenses and media for Microsoft SQL Server, Standard or Enterprise, will need to be acquired to utilize the database clustering services necessary to provide resiliency for the system databases used for management and job queuing.

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Windows Server 2008 Enterprise is only required when using two head nodes in a failover configuration. Compute nodes can still run Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition even when head nodes are using Windows Server 2008 Enterprise.

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 Windows HPC Server 2008 stores management and job queue information in a SQL database. A minimum of Microsoft SQL Server Express is required. If a customer requires head node failover or a management database greater than 4 GB, SQL Server Standard or Enterprise will be required to provide clustering and failover services for the databases.

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Each cluster can have only one active head node. Each cluster may also have a second, inactive, head node for failover purposes.

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No. Server Core is a minimal server installation option for computers running on the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Server Core provides a low-maintenance server environment with limited functionality. Server Core does not include the Microsoft .NET Framework which is a prerequisite to install the Microsoft HPC Pack 2008.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 supports the OGF (Open Grid Forum) HPC Basic Profile specification for jobs submission into the scheduler. It uses common Web services specifications to enable interoperability between multiple HPC middleware platforms and allows application and middleware software providers to target multiple HPC systems via a single protocol.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 provides API-level backwards compatibility with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 (WCCS). Windows HPC Server 2008 supports job submission from WCCS 2003 clients, including the WCCS command-line tools, the WCCS Job Manager, and the WCCS COM APIs. However, the Windows HPC Server 2008 client tools, including the Administrator Console, Job Manager, Command-Line Interface, and APIs, cannot be used to manage or submit jobs to a WCCS cluster. Additionally, PowerShell scripts written for WCCS 2003 are not supported on Windows HPC Server 2008. Third-party applications using the WCCS API should be compatible with Windows HPC Server 2008. These applications may, however, require changes to run properly on Windows Server 2008. If you encounter problems running your application on Windows Server 2008, you should consult your software vendor.

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There is no support for cluster comprised of both Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 and Windows HPC Server 2008 compute nodes.

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Side-by-side installation of Windows HPC Server 2008 and Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 on the same computer is not supported. This includes the Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 client utilities.

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Windows HPC Server 2008 is designed to work with servers running in a dedicated cluster and does not support desktop resource or cycle scavenging. Microsoft partners with third-party independent software vendors that provide this functionality. For more information please visit our HPC partner resources Web page: www.microsoft.com/hpc.

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Please visit www.microsoft.com/hpc for more information.