Microsoft Gulf showcases Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 at Gitex 2006

The technology will be showcased for the first time in the Middle East at Microsoft's stand, C9-1 in Sheikh Rashid Hall.

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 is already available to customers in the Middle East.

"High-performance computing technology holds great potential for expanding the opportunities within engineering, medical research, exploration and other critical human endeavors, but until now it has been too expensive and too difficult for many people to use effectively," said Desmond Nair, business group manager of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.

"Microsoft is making HPC technology more mainstream by bringing the cost advantages, ease of use and partner ecosystem of the Windows Server™ platform to departments and divisions in commercial industry and the public sector. We want HPC technology to become a pervasive resource — something that's as easy to locate and use as printers are today. Microsoft is excited about the promise this holds for our customers and partners in the months and years ahead."

Bringing High-Performance Computing to the Mainstream
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 provides customers with a simplified deployment and management experience, offers easy integration with existing Windows infrastructures, and enables customers to leverage their existing development skills using Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005. Via Microsoft's collaboration with the HPC community and strategic partners, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 will deliver a more mainstream way for engineers, scientists and researchers to solve scaled-out business and scientific computational problems.

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 has been used by early-adopter customers for oil and gas reservoir simulation and seismic processing, by life sciences customers for simulations of enzyme catalysis and protein folding, and by manufacturing customers for vehicle design and safety improvements.

Microsoft is also working closely with software and hardware partners to help ensure integration of Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. By the end of 2006, some of the partners who are scheduled to publicly release solutions that run on, or interoperate with, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 include: ABAQUS Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Inc., ESI Group, Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., HP, IBM Corp., Intel Corporation, Macrovision Corp., MSC Software Corp., NEC Corp., Parallel Geoscience Corp., Platform Computing Inc., Schlumberger Ltd., and SilverStorm Technologies.

Meeting the Growing Demand for High-Performance Computing
Microsoft's entrance into high-performance computing comes at a time when customers are presented with powerful computing economics in the forms of multicore processors, standards-based, high-speed interconnects and ubiquitous x64 (64-bit x86 architecture) computers. Customer demand for HPC is being driven by a combination of increased performance in processors per compute node, low acquisition price per node, and the overall price and performance of compute clusters. These trends are driving new customers to adopt HPC to replace or supplement live, physical experiments with computer-simulated modeling, tests and analysis.