Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008
consists of a Windows Server 2008 HPC Operating System License and a Windows HPC
Pack 2008 license for each server in the cluster (commonly referred to as head
nodes or compute nodes). HPC Server 2008 provides a productive, cost-effective,
and high-performance computing (HPC) solution that runs on x64-bit hardware.
Windows HPC Server 2008 can be deployed, managed, and extended using familiar
tools and technologies.
Windows HPC Server 2008 enables broader adoption of HPC by providing a rich and
integrated end-user experience scaling from the desktop application to the
clusters. A wide range of software vendors, in various verticals, have designed
their applications to work seamlessly with Windows HPC Server 2008 so that users
can submit and monitor jobs from within familiar applications without having to
learn new or complex user interfaces.
Developing parallel programs requires integrated development environments along
with support for distributed computing standards. Visual Studio 2008 provides a
comprehensive parallel programming environment for Windows HPC Server 2008. In
addition to supporting OpenMP, MPI, and Web Services, Windows HPC Server 2008
also supports third-party numerical library providers, performance optimizers,
compilers, and a native parallel debugger for developing and troubleshooting
parallel programs.
Licensing
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. This license comes with Microsoft's maintenance plan,
Software Assurance (SA).
If you run both permitted instances at the same time, the instance of the server
software running in the physical operating system environment may be used only
to:
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Run hardware virtualization software.
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Provide hardware virtualization services.
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Run software to manage and service operating system environments on the licensed
server.