For large computing clusters, diagnostics is where system administrators spend a lot of their time. Common tasks include: - Validate cluster post deployment or configuration change. - Troubleshoot failures. - Measure performance degradation over time. Windows HPC Server 2008 has 16 built-in diagnostics to help Sysadmins do diagnostics with ease. These diagnostic tests can be classified into the following categories, infrastructure, configuration report, and performance. Infrastructure tests include scheduler, system services, connectivity, and Service Oriented Architecture or the WCF broker model. While configuration report has application, network, software updates and system service tests available. Finally, we have two MPIPingPong tests that measure the cluster performance in terms of latency and bandwidth. The diagnostic tests are flexible and easy to run, and the results are filterable and searchable. System administrators can utilize the test results to further diagnose using built-in tools like clusrun, remote desktop, and node template features.

Monitoring and managing a large scale cluster often requires advanced tooling. System Administrators demand tools that help them to manage heterogeneous compute nodes, check cluster status at a glance, identify deviance, correlate node and job information, track changes, and the ability to integrate with existing IT infrastructure. Windows HPC Server 2008 admin console addresses all of the above problems with an integrated solution. The admin Console includes the following five main areas, charts and reports, configuration, node management, job management, and diagnostics. In addition, the console has a “pivoting” feature that allows the system administrator to navigate to different views by keeping the same context. Our Program manager Rae Wang, will go through each of the five areas with demonstrations and simple scenarios.

-Brief Description of the WCF Broker model -HPCBP-SOA xml schema -Controlling the SOA Session

-Users need to setup a place to store files for a job. -Specify Download and Upload files are supported using the file staging extension of JDSL. -May use the IIS's ftp server. -Staging, cleaning up files before and after a job submission are allowed.

Job Submission Description Language (JSDL) -How to run a job -Output of the job

Covers the following topics: -API in c#, XML schema. -Setting up and running the java client example -WSDL generation -Example implementation details -Code sigining/Certificates generation -Headnode Configurations

Covers the following topics: -Basic descriptions of Basic Execution Service. -Job Submission Description Language (JSDL) -HPC Basic Profile: customization of BES with a defined security model. -File staging extension of HPCBP -Linux and Windows scheduler interops

HPC Basic Profile Web Service or the HPCBP for short, is a web service, built using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) that provides access to some of HPCS 2008’s core job submission functionality. Over the last few years, using an open process within the Open Grid Forum (OGF), developers from industry and research from both the open source and commercial software communities, have come to agreement on the web service interface and protocols that can provide greatest interoperability. These set of specifications are encapsulated within the HPC Basic Profile 1.0. In this 5 parts video, Steven Newhouse, our HPC BP program manager gives a lecture on the details of HPC Basic Profile, the Microsoft SDK, examples of how to submit a job, pre-staging files, and starting a SOA session.

This sample code demonstrates one of the earlier creative ways of providing an Excel client integrated solution for windows compute cluster server. WCCS is the version 1 of the Microsoft high performance computing solution. The Excel CCS adaptor sample makes its User Defined Function calls through job submission, COM Proxy and file shares, it works with both V1 and V2 of the product. The adaptor tool's auto proxy distributor allows an end user to cluster-enable their XLLs without having to do any additional programming. Version 2 of the product will fully support the new WCF Broker model architecture, where short calls can be efficiently served by WCF SOA model. We will be looking at more ways to integrate Excel-HPC solutions in the near future. Source code is avaiable on download.microsoft.com