Do any people here use HPC on a regular basis at work? Specifically does anybody have experience with Windows HPC? The management at my work is considering buying a cluster computer with windows on it, but I’m really wary of this, since for starters, the solving time of an identical Nastran job on my desktop takes twice as long to solve under windows compared to Suse SLED 11. Basically, now we have an outdated Linux cluster that our inept Windows-only IT department has neglected and fallen into disrepair, so they’re trying to alleviate this by making the next cluster run windows :rolleyes: are there any users out there that want to chime in with their opinion/experience?
Bump… No one uses this stuff? Prolly a good thing somewhat.
Maybe if you gave us some indication of what the heck **HPC[/b} is, somebody might answer.
Huh, yeah, sorry. This kind of computer cluster operating system is pretty specialized for engineering and science applications. Since we have a fairly large knowledgeable base of scientists here, I thought I’d ask.
If anyone had inclination to answer, chances are they’d already know what it is.
(Disclaimer: I’m by no means an expert)
This sounds like less of a technical problem than a managerial one.
Even if you got brand-new Linux computers, you’d still have a Windows-only IT department. Wouldn’t it make more sense to try and train the IT guys on Linux or hire somebody else?
Or what if you just moved the data processing to a cloud service running either, at least freeing you from the hardware and networking side of things?
Yes, they made an announcement about expanding the IT dept operations from our local engineering office only to cover all of north America sales offices too, so they have one position open now… Heheh, I hope to be successful in cajoling management to look for someone with at least nominal Unix experience, we’re 100 miles from Silicon valley and it should be more than easy finding someone qualified.
About cloud solutions I already looked into Amazon cloud computing, but they can only do two nodes at a time. I think it’s more aimed at web hosting services, and not so much scientific computations. Also talked to our software providers and they currently do not offer licensing for this service.
But, long story short, yes, we need our IT to cease their allergy to anything not Windows. This might start sounding like more of a rant, as I’m not satisfied with their handling/caretaking of our existing cluster ( for example, waiting two months to replace 2 gb memory in one of the nodes, then not knowing whatsoever how to fix one of the nodes infiniband network connection, etc) I’m not sure how having windows on a cluster that could have these types of problems will be any easier. Plus, I’d hate to wind up with an inferior os running this expensive computer, by what I can tell doing apples to apples comparison on a desktop at any rate.
Anyway mods feel free to move this if no factual testimonials are forthcoming.
Well, good luck! It shouldn’t be that hard finding someone.
What do you mean two nodes at a time?
Have you looked at their HPC page?
Again, I’m no expert, but I thought Amazon separately does both hosting and cloud computing… I’d be surprised if their services weren’t tailored for scientific computing.