Deploy Compute Nodes with Pre-created Computer Objects in Active Directory

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Applies To: Windows HPC Server 2008 R2, Windows HPC Server 2008

By default, in an Active Directory domain, a domain user is authorized to add computers to the domain. Because of company policy, your domain administrator may change this default configuration and not authorize individual domain users to add new computers to the domain.

If the policy of your company does not allow you to add new computers to the domain, you will need to ask your domain administrator to pre-create the computer objects for you in Active Directory Domain Services before you deploy your Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 or Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster. This topic explains what information you need to provide to your domain administrator and what your domain administrator needs to do.

What you need to provide to your domain administrator

You will need to provide the following information to your domain administrator:

  • A list of all the computer names that will be used for the head node and the compute nodes in your HPC cluster. If you will be using a node naming series to generate names automatically when compute nodes are deployed, you can provide a list based on the naming series that you specify and the number of nodes that you are planning to deploy.

    Note


    For more information, see Specify the Node Naming Series [Help link] [HPCv3Administrator].

  • The domain account that you will use to deploy your HPC cluster. You may also want to discuss with your domain administrator the possibility of creating a domain account that is specifically used for node deployment.

    Note


    For more information, see Provide Installation Credentials [HPCv3Administrator].

What your domain administrator needs to do

Your domain administrator will need to perform the following tasks:

  • Create a new computer object in the domain for the head node computer and for each compute node in the list that you provided.

  • Give permission to join the computers to the domain to the domain account that you will use to deploy your HPC cluster.

After the computer objects have been created and the installation credentials have been granted the necessary permission to join the computers to the domain, you can deploy your HPC cluster using any of the available deployment methods.

Important


Do not remove the Create Computer Account task (a Provisioning task) from the node template that you use to deploy compute nodes with pre-created objects in Active Directory. The task is required for other deployment actions that take place during node deployment.

Additional references