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It was released to manufacturing in June and now Microsoft’s Compute Cluster operating system for high performance computing is generally available:
Today Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, the company’s first product designed specifically for high-performance computing (HPC). With Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Microsoft aims to make it easier to create, integrate and operate HPC clusters within organizations, thereby expanding the technology beyond traditional supercomputing centers by bringing the value of computational clusters within reach of more people.
There’s a Q&A with customers by following the link.
I watched the Webcast of yesterday’s TechEd 2006 keynote and offer the modest suggestion that it would be rather better for Microsoft to take it easy on the soporific “People-Ready Business vision” marketing boilerplate and cut to the technical content. To that end, here’s the raw meat:
Security (more details here)
- Antigen e-mail security products announced last week
- Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2006 launched
- Microsoft Forefront announced as new brand for enterprise security products including the next generation of Antigen products. “The Forefront line will include Forefront Client Security (formerly called Microsoft Client Protection), a solution delivering unified malware protection for business desktops, laptops and server operating systems. An early beta version has been made available to select customers, and a public beta is planned for the fourth quarter of 2006.”
Microsoft Application Platform
- A Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the forthcoming SQL Server Everywhere client database was announced – download it here.
- Community Technology Preview of Visual Studio® Team Edition for Database Professionals announced – download it here.
- BizTalk® Server 2006 R2 was revealed last week and there was also mention of a “BizTalk Adapter Pack, a set of application adapters to enable customers to surface line-of-business data directly into familiar interfaces such as Microsoft Office or any client using Web services”.
Exchange (more details here)
- Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 Announced – available for testing by the end of July
- “Microsoft also disclosed new mobile features and functionality in Exchange Server 2007, including support for search on a device, improved meeting request handling, support for HTML e-mail, message flagging and self-service remote device wipe. The upcoming availability of Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 is a key step forward to general availability for late 2006 or early 2007.”
Compute Cluster
- Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 released last week
System Center Operations Manager
- Beta of System Center Operations Manager 2007 now publicly available here.
Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta)
- Microsoft Dynamics™ AX version 4.0 launched – details here
There’s likely more to come, but it’s certainly a mixed bag of products.
Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003, the company’s first software offering designed to run parallel, high-performance computing (HPC) applications for customers solving complex computations. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 accelerates customers’ time to insight by providing a reliable, HPC platform that is simple to deploy, operate, and integrate with existing infrastructure and tools. The product will be generally available to customers in August, and evaluation versions will be provided to attendees of the Microsoft® Tech•Ed 2006 conference, June 11–16 in Boston.
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Evaluation versions are available today from http://www.microsoft.com/hpc, with generally availability scheduled for August via volume licensing and original equipment manufacturing licensing. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 will be available in the volume license channel for an estimated price of $469 (U.S.) per node, but prices will vary depending on license and volume.
The price is aggressive, but it’s not free like Linux, the entrenched competition. Microsoft is building an ecosystem of OEMs and ISVs as well as working with a number of customers, but the real question is whether there’s a market for commodity HPC or it will remain the province of the research community. There’s more background in Ina Fried’s interview with Kyril Faenov, Microsoft’s director of High Performance Computing, at ZDNet.
The last two weeks have been rather busy both from quantity of news and competing time pressures, so I thought I would collect some short links to items worth noting that didn’t get separate posts of their own. The down side is that this post gets filed in a ton of categories as you can see above.
- MSN expects China to be top five market by 2010
- Todd Bishop covers Microsoft’s move into high performance computing at Supercomputing 2005, including the Bill Gates keynote and the Sheryl Crow party. He also scores an interview with Craig Mundie, “chief technical officer who ran a supercomputing company before joining Microsoft in the early 1990s.” The latest report is that Burton Smith who left Cray to join Microsoft last week will work for Mundie.
- Microsoft adds Firefox support for Microsoft Genuine Advantage validation.
- The very clever Microsoft virtual labs have been upgraded:
The team just re-launched the TechNet and MSDN virtual labs running on Virtual Server 2005 R2. Check out these sites if you want to test our new software, such as SQL Server 2005 integration services, Windows Server R2 or Visual Studio Team System, in a sandbox environment. Each session is 90 minutes and comes without install, strings attached, or price to participate.
- Microsoft says it won’t support SAML 2.0. It’ll stick with the WS-Federation web service protocols. More here.
- Hyperthreading hurts server performance, say developers:
Intel’s Hyperthreading Technology (HT) is being blamed for server performance problems.
With both SQL Server and Citrix Terminal Server installations, HT-enabled motherboards show markedly degraded performance under heavy load. Disabling HT restores expected levels, according to reports from within the IT industry.
- Paris accelerates move to open source and Vienna’s open source desktop migration takes off.
- Microsoft Taps Former Rational Heavyweight Ivar Jacobson to Lend Credence to Enterprise Tools Play
- Office 12′s slick new UI feature: “Live Preview” and Microsoft Office 12 Beta 1: Extreme Makeover
- New UI Font Coming to Vista, Office 12. It’s “Segoe UI” and I guess I’m going to need new specs:
Office 12 will primarily use the 8pt. version of the font, while Windows itself will use the 9pt. size.
- Vista Will Be Compatible with HD DVD but not in the first release.
- Better Website Identification and Extended Validation Certificates in IE7 and Other Browsers. See also Browser makers to give trusted sites a green look.
