MOC 50290 Understanding and Administering Windows HPC Server 2008- Seminare

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                      Introduction to High-Performance Computing and                       HPC Server

• Motivation for HPC.
• Brief product history of Compute Cluster Server and Windows HPC Server 2008.
• Brief overview of Windows HPC Server 2008 — components, job submission, scheduler.
• HPC resources:  cores vs. sockets vs. nodes.
• Product differentiators.
• The goal of your developers — linear speedup.

                      The Windows HPC Server Job Scheduler in depth                      

• Throughput vs. performance.
• Jobs vs. Tasks.
• Job and task states.
• The definition of a failed job / task, auto re-starting upon failure.
• Default scheduling policies.
• Job-level vs. task-level policies.
• The impact of job priorities and job preemption.
• Job resources and dynamic growing / shrinking.

The main components of a Windows HPC Server cluster                      

• Headnode vs. compute nodes vs. broker nodes.
• Windows Server 2008 + HPC Pack.
• SQL Server.
• Active directory and credentials management.
• Network topologies.
• Data storage options:  SMB, NAS, PFS.
• Job Scheduler and the job queue.

                      I                                            nterfacing with HPC Server — from command prompts to MMC p                                           lugins 

• Cluster Manager.
• Job Manager.
• Job Description Files.
• Clusrun.
• Console window.
• PowerShell.
• Scripts.
• Programmatically via HPCS API.

Basic cluster setup, from hardware to software

• Hardware, physical and virtual.
• Software:  Windows Server 2008 editions, Windows HPC Server Pack, Windows HPC Server Pack SDK.
• Active Directory integration.
• Common groups, local directories, and network shares.
• Network topologies, DNS, and DHCP.
• Runtimes, software, and tools commonly needed by developers.
• Supporting remote debugging and tracing.

Advanced setup and integration options

• Windows Deployment Services.
• High-speed networking hardware and drivers, e.g. InfiniBand.
• Configuring headnode failover with Windows Server Failover Clustering.
• Enabling support for Open Grid Forum’s basic web profile.
• Additional monitoring via System Center Operations Manager.
• Cluster integration (with other Windows HPC Server clusters, and Linux clusters).

Understanding how developers will use the cluster

• What applications can run on the cluster.
• What software technologies will developers typically use.
• Sequential apps.
• Parametric sweep.
• SOA applications.
• Multi-threaded apps.
• MPI apps.
• UNIX apps.
• The cluster heatmap and how to customize.

Configuring Windows HPC Server 2008

• Node groups.
• Job templates.
• Job preemption.
• Dynamic resource allocation.
• Submission and activation filters.
• Job history, job restarting.
• Applying configurations to HPC users and groups.

Maintenance and Performance Tuning of your Cluster

• Cluster Manager diagnostics.
• Defining your own, custom diagnostic tests.
• Common job and task failures — from the command-line to licensing.
• App-specific failures with MPI and SOA.
• Security issues.
• Remote desktop as a debugging technique.
• Windows event log.
• WCF tracing.

Cluster Maintenance

• Cluster Manager charts and reports.
• Performance maintenance:  MPI ping-pong, Lizard, and uSane.
• Synchronizing software patches to the cluster.
• Headnode maintenance.
• SQL Server maintenance.
• Compute and broker node maintenance.
• Automating maintenance runs.