Hi Jon Jon Forrest wrote:
First of all, I like Microsoft, and I voluntarily use Vista as my desktop of choice. I've built and run the Windows environments for the top CS and Civil Engineering departments in the US, and I was the first to port Postgres to Windows NT.
Postgres is nice. Did you do a native (ms C compiler) port or a cygwin port?
That said, I just don't see how Microsoft's HPC server can succeed. I'm not saying this for technical reasons, as I'm sure Microsoft, with enough work, can build a clustering environment that will work just fine. But, why would anybody buy a Windows cluster when there are so many great clustering environments (e.g. Rocks, Perceus, Unicluster Express, ...) and so many cluster-related packages (*MPI, SGE, PBS, gcc, Torque, ...) available for free? What's more, from what I can see, there is very little non-Microsoft-sponsored development going on in HPC computing.
Oddly enough, for a long time I have believed (and we have proposed privately to Microsoft) ways in which I think it could make a difference. In short, there are codes that are now and will always be windows based, and that is fine. They may need to run on a cluster, and they should be able to.
Microsoft recently announced (somewhere, I can't find it) the availability of a test cluster for universities to use for financial applications. I bet they get some interest since many business schools use Windows, plus the cluster is free. But, the question remains. How can Microsoft compete with free?
It needs to adapt. But not necessarily "compete" the way it has in the past.
How much better will they have to be than standard Linux clusters before they get any mainstream interest? What technical features could they add that couldn't be added to a Linux cluster?
These are critical questions. The big question that needs to be answered (by Microsoft) is whether or not they need to displace or take over for Linux to be successful in this space. I believe the answer to this is "no".
It might be worth engaging John West (InsideHPC.com), and a number of others in this conversation, as there are some good and informed views about this out there.
Cordially,
-- Joseph Landman, Ph.D Founder and CEO Scalable Informatics LLC, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web : http://www.scalableinformatics.com http://jackrabbit.scalableinformatics.com phone: +1 734 786 8423 fax : +1 866 888 3112 cell : +1 734 612 4615 _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
