[Beowulf] How Can Microsoft's HPC Server Succeed?

[Jim Lux]

Quoting Chris Samuel <csamuel at vpac.org>, on Fri 04 Apr 2008 12:47:09 AM PDT:

>
> ----- "Jon Forrest" <jlforrest at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
>> What technical features could they add that couldn't
>> be added to a Linux cluster?
>
> Windows botnet clients & client access licenses ? :-)
>
> Seriously though, my concern is about the impact of the
> essential anti-virus, anti-malware and anti-spyware
> software on each node of the system be ?

Why would you need such a thing?  Are you reading email and browsing  
the web from you cluster nodes?  Do you have users downloading the  
latest e-birthday card or nifty *free* game on the nodes.  I think  
not.  They're sitting behind a head node or similar.

I wouldn't put AV software of any kind on the nodes.  heck, if you  
have a problem, you'd just wipe and reinstall from known good media.


This is no different than big corporations with Windows desktops..  
they're locked down from external media, and boot from a shared image  
on a server and have no outside internet access.

>
> Who could seriously consider running *any* Windows box these
> days without them ?


If you're running quasi-real time software (e.g. Labview) doing  
instrument controls?

It's perfectly reasonable to run Windows machines without virus  
checkers, etc., if you have a fairly decent software configuration  
management process in place.



>
> Not least on a system that is designed to have random people
> login in and run their applications on.

Relatively few clusters fit in that category.


>
> cheers,
> Chris
> --
> Christopher Samuel - (03) 9925 4751 - Systems Manager
>  The Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing
>  P.O. Box 201, Carlton South, VIC 3053, Australia
> VPAC is a not-for-profit Registered Research Agency
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