Cluster management

An HPC cluster needs to have all the qualities you would expect from an effective production system: it must be available and capable of delivering the best performance under normal working conditions, with a varied and fluctuating workload, multiple users and multiple applications. This means the choice of cluster management suite is crucial, and has a real impact on the effective availability rate of the computing environment. At the same time, users should be able to concentrate on their own applications, rather than spend their time on administering the cluster.

Bull HPC solutions offer a choice between Bull Advanced Server - Bull’s comprehensive HPC Software Suite for Linux environments - and Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

Linux 
Windows CCS 

Linux   

Bull Advanced Server (BAS) is delivered with the Bull NovaScale Cluster 400-L (Intel® Xeon®-based) and Bull NovaScale Cluster 3000 (Intel® Itanium®2-based) Series.

Bull Advanced Server is based on a standard RedHat Linux distribution combined with a number of Open Source applications to take advantage of the best from the Open Systems community. This combined with technology from Bull and its partners, results in a powerful and complete solution for the development, execution and management of parallel and serial applications simultaneously.

Centralized cluster administration
The Bull HPC Software Suite enables the entire configuration to be controlled and administered – including the platform and interconnect network – as a single system. It features functions for software deployment on the servers, resource controls and monitoring from a centralized control workstation. Users are provided with a classic task management interface to manage the execution of their workload on the cluster.

The environment uses the very best Open Source and industry standard software, and incorporates all the improvements made by Bull, particularly to ensure that the various administration tools work effectively together and operate well on very large clusters. All the functionality has been fully integrated to ensure simple, high-performance operation of Bull NovaScale Clusters from a single point of control – the administration node – with a high level of security.

Microsoft® Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003   

Bull, as a Microsoft Gold Partner, supports Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003. The Bull NovaScale Cluster 400-W range is designed especially for Windows and is delivered with Windows CCS pre-installed, to provide an easy to use, scalable HPC infrastructure for the manufacturing industry.

To prepare the future, Bull is part of the Windows HPC Server 2008 beta program.

Time to market, cost control, and product reliability are critical in a world where manufacturers compete globally. Success in this challenging environment relies on leveraging the right technologies to handle virtual product design and efficiently use FEA (Finite Element Analysis) and CFD (Computer Fluid Dynamics) tools.

Bull and Microsoft team up to provide those most recent best
technologies, based on proven and reliable architectures. Clusters have by now moved everywhere in the design and manufacturing facilities to run mechanical computer-aided engineering (MCAE) codes with flexibility and efficiency.
Leveraging its deep expertise in designing and delivering HPC clusters, Bull complements its traditional offering with Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 solutions to address the needs of industrial users who need fast and easy turnkey solutions for their MCAE applications.

Certified Microsoft expertise at your service
Microsoft-certified experts from Bull’s Competence Centres will help you size, design, implement and optimize your infrastructure for optimal efficiency.

Broad application support
CCS is supported by leading applications. The cooperation of Microsoft and Bull with the forefront ISVs serving the MCAE sector ensures our customers that the reliability and productivity of their solutions will be unmatched.

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 is Microsoft's first software offering designed specifically to run parallel, HPC applications for customers solving complex computations. Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 accelerates customers' time-to-insight by providing a HPC platform that is simple to deploy, operate and integrate with existing infrastructure and tools.

More information on Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003