The Hindu Business Line : Microsoft forays into HPC

"HPC has changed over the years. In 1991, a 10 giga-flops (flops is a measure of speed) Cray supercomputer cost $40 million. Now prices have dropped to just $4,000, making it more accessible to the mid-market," said Mr Kyril Faenov, General Manager, HPC, Microsoft.

It is this market that Microsoft is targeting for its Windows Computer Cluster Server 2003.

While oil and gas behemoths and engineering design firms require high performance computing for data crunching, other smaller firms are beginning to use it for simulation in manufacturing design work.

"Crash analysis, automotive design and biotech firms have started to invest in smaller clusters, with 8-16 nodes. High-end clusters go up to 1,000 nodes," said Mr Vaibhav Phadnis, Director (Server Business Group), Microsoft India.

While Unix is still maintaining the lead in the mission-critical HPC market, Linux has been the flavour of the cluster computing needs for SMEs.

"Microsoft's offering in HPC will bring in more choice for the end user in the SME market," said Mr Faisal M. Paul, Country Manager (HPC & Linux), Technology Solutions Group, HP India Sales.

The company has identified Government, oil and gas, academia and life sciences as focus verticals.

Microsoft believes that its HPC offering offers easier integration with end-user applications, and that clusters can be set up faster. The company is betting on the familiarity of its operating system to woo users.

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