Windows HPC

Jim Meyer purp at wildbrain.com
Sun Aug 18 09:12:48 PDT 2002


Hello!

On Sat, 2002-08-17 at 10:40, Mark Hahn wrote:
> Todd Needham wrote:
> > exploit the power and scalability of Windows-based clusters. 
> 
> could you define what you mean by "power" here?  I don't see Cornell
> doing anything which cannot easily be done on alternative setups,
> so they have equivalent power.
> 
> "scalability", I understand.  so in what way are Windows-based clusters
> more scalable?  a correct answer must define which resources limit the 
> scaling of non-Windows clusters, and how Windows clusters avoid that limit.
> 
> power and scalability are well-defined technical terms, not buzzwords
> that marketing types can just emit around at random.

While I would agree that there are OSes better suited to distributed and
parallel computing than Windows, I feel obliged to point out that Todd's
original statement didn't claim to be either more powerful or more
scalable. It merely said that the solution "easily and fairly
transparently allows [the users] to exploit the power and scalability of
Windows-based clusters." It didn't attempt to quantify that power or
scalability.

I don't think we need to invent straw men to debate here; there's more
than enough legitimate fodder. =]

Cheers!

--j
-- 
Jim Meyer, Geek At Large                              purp at wildbrain.com




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