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____/ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on Tuesday 30 September 2008 23:05 : \____
> <Quote>
> I am 'one of the few' people who has actually "used" Windows Compute
> Cluster Server 2003 in a work environment (for running Computation
> Fluid Dynamics programs).
> Here are my experiences:
> Firstly, basically it is just Windows 2003 server for AMD64. There is
> an additional CD with the 'Compute Cluster' pack that must be
> installed.
> There is a graphical queue manager MMC snapin etc.
>
> There are some current problems with Computer Cluster Server:
> * The kernel is old, and as usual, there are troubles finding the
> correct 64-bit driver for the on-board SCSI in our brand new Dell
> nodes. Windows requires a floppy disk. None of the nodes have a floppy
> drive, so we have to hook up a USB floppy, and locate a floppy disk!!
> * Default update behaviour. You must be careful to make sure that
> Windows update is disabled, because it will reboot that machines in
> the middle of the night, killing hundreds of hours worth of jobs, and
> driving users into a searing rage. Updates that require reboots are
> far too frequent for production use systems. Updates at present
> require additional IT management to manually install.
> * Jobs randomly crash - avoid virus checkers. I think because our IT
> department's amazing virus scanner decides to eat up all the non-paged
> pool (i'm still investigating this one). Installing virus scanners on
> compute nodes, where intensive disk access is the norm borders on
> insanity in my opinion.
> * Infiniband drivers - We have beta drivers from a major provider of
> infiniband cards (OpenIB stack). They are, in their current state, not
> usable. The compute cluster node management software faults repeatedly
> in the user mode DLL of the OpenIB device drivers. We have never been
> able to run a job with it over more than 2 nodes.
> Generally, we use HP MPI, which is pretty solid over ethernet, but
> because of bad drivers, can't currently be used over Infiniband. We'll
> have to get updated drivers when I get time to look at this.
> Saying this, we've also had issues in the past with Linux Infiniband
> drivers, but these are usually resolved quickly by vendor, or by a
> kernel update.
> * Lack of a decent scripting language that is common on all platforms
> requires that cygwin/bash/python be deployed to all nodes to allow
> platform independent scripts to execute.
> * Management of shared drives on Windows has always been a problem.
> Some Windows programs just don't like UNC paths. Drive letter mapping
> gets mixed up with domain policy, update scripts, user's personal
> mappings, and our source control system's mappings. What a mess.
> Windows NEEDS an automounter. Consequently, we tend to copy files
> about. This is better for the performance of the programs that we are
> running in many cases anyway.
> * There are two Terminal Server licenses per node for administration,
> so if your users need to be able to login to compute nodes (as they
> frequently do with some programs), you will have to fork out for
> expensive terminal server licenses.
> * Few HPC applications actually support Windows compute nodes.
> Save yourself some effort, and just deploy Linux on HPC nodes.
> </Quote>
>
> http://blogs.computerworld.com/where_windows_is_2_to_linux
>
> Ballmer recently said that High Performance Computing is one area
> Microsoft aims to have a large presence in.
He also boasted about search ambitions for like half a decade. And where are
they? Still declining, despite /paying/ people to use the thing.
My colleagues tried Windows high perfor~1 and it sucked so badly that it was
embarrassing. Like many other such clusters, there was an escape from it,
despite Microsoft 'freebies'.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_thread/thread/b0979cb7dc236ee2/0de2951986892356?lnk=st
- --
~~ Best of wishes
"Linux is a very complete and sophisticated operating system. And there is a
lot of work being done to improve it in and of itself, particularly to make it
easier to use and easier for people to set up on their personal computers."
--Paul Maritz, senior vice-president, Microsoft
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