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<body>Hello,<BR>
I read the item below and am wondering if any of you have a working WRF-MS Windows CCS 2003 system?<BR>
Thank you!<BR>Pat Hayes<BR>
<A href="mailto:PatHayes@msn.com">PatHayes@msn.com</A><BR>
<A href="mailto:Patrick.Hayes@ngc.com">Patrick.Hayes@ngc.com</A><BR>
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<A title=outbind://169-00000000A9FF4764858B3B49B5283B579333D5F764F23300/ href=""><FONT title=outbind://169-00000000A9FF4764858B3B49B5283B579333D5F764F23300/ face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><U>http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/aug06/08-01wccsrtm.mspx</U></FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Q&A: Taking High-Performance Computing Mainstream<BR>Customers report that Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 makes it <BR>easier and more cost effective to develop, deploy and use HPC systems, and <BR>they report that a Windows-based HPC platform integrates smoothly with <BR>existing IT resources.<BR><BR>REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 1, 2006 -- Today Microsoft announced the general <BR>availability of Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, the company's <BR>first product designed specifically for high-performance computing (HPC). <BR>With Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Microsoft aims to make it easier <BR>to create, integrate and operate HPC clusters within organizations, thereby <BR>expanding the technology beyond traditional supercomputing centers by <BR>bringing the value of computational clusters within reach of more people.<BR>To understand the impact of today's milestone, PressPass convened a <BR>roundtable of customers who have been test driving Microsoft Windows Compute <BR>Cluster Server 2003 in demanding applications, including biomedical research <BR>and scientific modeling. Providing their insight are:<BR><BR><STRONG><U>John Michalakes</U></STRONG>, senior software engineer at the National Center for <BR>Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.<BR><BR><STRONG><U>PressPass:</U></STRONG> Would each of you begin by briefly describing the work you're <BR>doing as it relates to Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server?<BR><BR><STRONG><U>Michalakes:</U></STRONG> About eight years ago, NCAR and a number of partner <BR>organizations involved in atmospheric research and operational forecasting <BR>began working on a next-generation community weather model and data <BR>assimilation system to eventually replace aging model codes in use for <BR>forecasting and research. This new model, called the Weather Research and <BR>Forecast (WRF) model, is basically all new software, designed from the <BR>outset for HPC systems. WRF is maintained and freely distributed as a <BR>community model and is being run at hundreds of institutions across the <BR>range of systems, from individual workstations to large supercomputers. <BR>Thus, portability and portable performance has been a key concern in the <BR>design and implementation of WRF<BR><BR><STRONG><U>PressPass:</U></STRONG> What made you decide to use the Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster <BR>Server 2003, and what benefits do you think it offers to your organization <BR>and your work?<BR><BR><STRONG><U>Michalakes:</U></STRONG> We strive to maintain WRF [NCAR's Weather Research and Forecast <BR>model] on as many systems deployed in our user community as possible. Until <BR>now, that meant systems running some flavor of UNIX or Linux. With the <BR>emergence of Microsoft Windows as a viable HPC operating system, and given <BR>that we receive on average one user request per month asking if WRF will <BR>work on Windows, we see Windows CCS as an opportunity for further broadening <BR>the range of computational resources available to the WRF user community.<BR><BR><STRONG><U>PressPass:</U></STRONG> What business needs are you solving with high-performance <BR>computing?<BR><BR><STRONG><U>Michalakes:</U></STRONG> Although the WRF model is used primarily in public sector <BR>institutions -- atmospheric research departments and government-run research <BR>and forecast centers -- a growing number of commercial weather forecast <BR>companies use WRF as well. These companies make specialized weather forecast <BR>products for customers in construction, agriculture, energy and other <BR>businesses.<BR><BR><STRONG><U>PressPass:</U></STRONG> As HPC becomes more of a mainstream technology, what key <BR>opportunities and challenges do you foresee for commercial and research <BR>application developers?<BR></FONT><BR>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><STRONG><U>Michalakes:</U></STRONG> One shift we've seen as HPC has matured is from thinking about <BR>the performance-at-any-cost of HPC systems to thinking more about <BR>cost-performance of such systems. I believe operational numerical weather <BR>prediction is solidly terascale, but it remains to be seen whether <BR>operational centers will move to petascale systems for their day-to-day, <BR>real-time forecasting production schedules. The issue will be cost -- the <BR>cost of petascale systems themselves, as well as the cost to operate such <BR>systems and the cost to retool and maintain modeling software to run on such <BR>systems, weighed against some hoped-for improvement in forecast quality. In <BR>the near term, I believe petascale computing will be used for non-real-time, <BR>very-high-resolution simulations for research to improve understanding of <BR>atmospheric processes that will, in turn, provide improvements to <BR>lower-resolution operational real-time prediction runs.<BR>Having said all this about petascale computing, my sense in the context of <BR>this discussion is that Microsoft is not currently targeting frontier <BR>computing systems for Windows Compute Cluster Server, but focusing instead <BR>on small- to mid-level clusters more widely deployed in the research and <BR>commercial areas of weather modeling. From this perspective, the challenges <BR>and opportunities are efficient integration and management of computing and <BR>data systems to allow for more seamless coordination and management of <BR>workflows for end-to-end computing and analysis of weather and climate <BR>applications. <BR></FONT></DIV></body>
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