Goodbye Beowulf? Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition en route
Besides the native Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL powerhouse, there's always been one other place the *nixes and workalikes have had Windows consistently bested—clustered computing (some like to call it supercomputing, we like to call it another day at the office). Well, we're not sure if the Beowulf cluster's days are numbered, but Microsoft's aiming to have their latest Server 2003 variant ready by November, the awkwardly named Windows Server 2003 Compute (no r) Cluster Edition. (Don't tell us its codename is Grendel.) The system will also come with "cycle harvesting" capabilities, SETI/folding@home-like techniques for using spare processor power in idle workstations to speed up massive parallellized computations. Man, would that ever come in handy this month; we're going to need some serious horsepower to compute our deductions for all the gadgets we bought in the 2004 tax year.
[Via CNet]
