Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Carlos Hulot
New Technologies & Plataform Manager
Microsoft Brasil
cahulot@microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com/hpc
1
Agenda
1.
The Definition of HPC
2.
WCCS2003 Launch!
3.
Architecture
4.
Security
5.
User Interface
6.
Task Manager
7.
Developing using Visual Studio 2005
2
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
The Definition of HPC
3
Definition and History of HPC

HPC is broadly defined as the technology that is used to provide solutions to problems that
need:
 Significant computational power
 To quickly access and process large amounts of data
 To operate interactively across a geographically distributed network

The goal of HPC is to reduce the execution time of a compute intensive or data intensive
application

The market for HPC was small & niche. In the past 15 years, this market grew significantly

HPC has changed in the past 15 years due to improvement in:
 Hardware performance
 Hardware price
 Software performance and usability
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Definition and History of HPC
1991
1998
2005
System
Cray Y-MP C916
Sun HPC10000
Shuttle @ NewEgg.com
Architecture
16 x Vector
4GB, Bus
24 x 333MHz Ultra-SPARCII,
24GB, SBus
4 x 2.2GHz x64
4GB, GigE
OS
UNICOS
Solaris 2.5.1
Windows Server 2003 SP1
Performance
~10 GFlops
~10 GFlops
~10 GFlops
Top500 #
1
500
N/A
Price
$40,000,000
$1,000,000 (40x drop)
< $4,000 (250x drop)
Customers
Government Labs
Large Enterprises
Every Engineer & Scientist
Applications
Classified, Climate, Physics
Research
Manufacturing, Energy, Finance,
Telecom
Bioinformatics, Materials Sciences,
Digital Media
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Areas where HPC is used

A few of the areas where HPC is used are:
 Aerospace and Automotive
 Earth and Space Science
 Seismology
 Bioinformatics
 Chemistry
 Rendering
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Launched on June 2006 !!!
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Microsoft Compute Cluster Server

Vision



Mission Statement


Based on Windows Server 2003 SP1 64 bit Edition.
Suport for Ethernet, Infiniband and others (better than Winsock Direct).
Administration





Empowering end users by allowing them to easily harness distributed computing resources to solve complex
problems.
Platform



Solution for aplications that uses intensive compute tasks.
To help scalate using a cluster of computers.
Setup and administration simplified.
Administration based on images + scripts.
Security based on Active Directory.
Job scheduling and resources administration.
Development



Cluster scheduler via .NET and DCOM.
MPI2 stack with a better performance and security for parallel applications.
Visual Studio 2005 – OpenMP, Parallel Debugger.
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Hardware Requirements

CPU (x64 bit processor architecture)
 Intel Pentium or Xeon family (EM64T)
 AMD Opteron and Athlon family

Memory
 512 MB minimum, 32 GB RAM maximum

Multiprocessor support
 Up to 4 processors per server

Disk capacity
 4GB disk capacity for setup

Disk Volumes
 Two volumes on head node (if using RIS) and single volume on nodes.

Network Interface Cards
 At least one network interface card required on all the nodes.
www.microsoft.com/hpc
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Software Requirements

Operating Systems (Cluster Nodes)
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition

Operating Systems (Remote Workstation)
 Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, Standard Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, Enterprise Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition
www.microsoft.com/hpc
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Software Requirements

Remote Installation Service

Active Directory

Software Development Kit

Visual Studio 2005 (recommended)

Hotfixes
 ICS hotfix Q897616
 RIS Beta Hotfix for Compute Cluster Server

Additional Software Requirements
 .NET Framework 2.0
 Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0 Pre-Release
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Software Components
 Compilers
 GNU Compiler Collection
 PGI Compilers
 Intel Compilers
 Microsoft Visual C++
 UNIX Environment for Windows
 Interix and Windows Services for UNIX
 Cygwin
 MKS Toolkit
 Optimization and Tuning Software






 Communication Libraries
 Threading Libraries
 OpenMP API
 Native Windows Threading
 Message Passing Libraries
 MPI
 MPI/Pro
 MPICH
 MSMPI
Intel VTune
Intel Thread Checker
MSTI SeeWithin/Pro
Microsoft Tools
Spy++
PView
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Architecture
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Topology of WCCS
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Communication Components

Computers in a cluster can be connected in one of the six communication
topologies:






Star
Crossbar
Ring
2D Hypercube
Fully Connected
Mesh / Grid
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Security
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Some Details about Security

Permissions on files and folders on the file server that is connected to
both the head nodes and the compute nodes.

Secure movement of files from personal computers back and forth to the
secure file server.

Authentication of users on compute nodes so that jobs can be run
remotely on these computers.

User management
 Human and programming interfaces

Program run levels
 User level, kernel, Admin mode

Dynamic access to resources
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Security in Compute Cluster Server

Integration with production Active Directory.

Job execution credentials.

Security
 Job executes based on submitters credentials
 Credentials cache
 DPAPI (credentials storage)

Exception handling
 Re-queue
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
User Interface – Control Panel
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WCCS Components
 Head Node
 Compute Node
 Job Scheduler
 Management Infrastructure
 Compute Cluster Administrator and Job Manager
 Command Line Interface
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Installing and Configuring Head Node
Node
Head Node
24
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Installing and Configuring Head Node

Configuring the Cluster
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Installing and Configuring Head Node

Selecting Network Topology
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Services on Nodes

Head Node






Compute Cluster Management Service
Compute Cluster Scheduler Service
Compute Cluster SDM Store Service
Compute Cluster MPI Service
Compute Cluster Node Manager Service
Compute Nodes



Compute Cluster Management Service
Compute Cluster MPI Service
Compute Cluster Node Manager Service
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Cluster Control
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Management of WCCS

Remote Desktop Sessions
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Management of WCCS

System Monitor
 This page displays performance monitoring data for the cluster
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Task Manager
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Defining a Job
 Job: “A collection of tasks”
 A task represents the execution of a program on specified compute nodes
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Job Activation

State transition during job execution on compute node
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Create a new Job
36
www.microsoft.com/hpc
CCPAPI with XML

Submission and serialization of jobs using
CCPAPI and XML structures known as
Templates.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Job xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
AllocatedNodes="1 NODE1 1 "

Id="50"
Templates are XML structures that
capture the essence and relationship of
Tasks to Jobs, Jobs to Nodes and Nodes
to Cluster.
Name=“CLUSTER\user1:May 29 2006 1:34PM
"SubmittedBy="CLUSTER\user1"
Status="Finished"
User="CLUSTER\user1">
<ExtendedTerms xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/ComputeCluster/" />

The job and task XML schemas definitions
(XSD) are provided in the SDK.
<Tasks xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/ComputeCluster/">
<Task
AllocatedNodes="1 NODE1 1 "
CommandLine="cmd.exe /c echo helloworld"

CCPAPI provides methods to create and
schedule jobs based on these templates
Id="1"
ParentJobId="50"
Status="Finished">
</Task>
</Tasks>
</Job>
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www.microsoft.com/hpc
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Developing using Visual Studio 2005
38
Tuning Area

Five areas of focus to improve performance
39
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Message Passing Interface – MPI

Goals of MPI
 Design a compiler independent API.
 Allow efficient and reliable communication.
 Scope for implementations to support
heterogeneous environment.
 Interface design to be language independent
 Convenient C and Fortran bindings for the
interface.

When not to use MPI
 Cases where “data parallel” is more efficient.
 Cases where library functions of parallel code
are already available for specific domain
problems.
 No scope for parallel programming.
42
www.microsoft.com/hpc
MSMPI

MSMPI is an implementation of MPI2 by Microsoft.

Compatible with MPICH2 from Argonne National Lab.

Security feature in MSMPI is the differentiator.

Parallel debugging of MPI application through Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
43
www.microsoft.com/hpc
Microsoft Academic Programs
WCCS 2003 Access to Academia
46
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003
Thank you!!!
Microsoft HPC website
http://www.microsoft.com/hpc
Public Newsgroup
nntp://microsoft.public.windows.hpc
Comunidade Acadêmica | Brasil
http://www.microsoft.com/brasil/comunidadeacademica
Carlos Hulot
New Technologies & Plataform Manager
Microsoft Brasil
cahulot@microsoft.com
www.microsoft.com/hpc
47