Adding Workstation Nodes in Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Step-by-Step Guide

In Windows® HPC Server 2008 R2, you can add workstation computers that are running the Windows® 7 operating system to your high performance computing (HPC) cluster. These computers are added as workstation nodes, and you can use them to run cluster jobs. Workstation nodes added to an HPC cluster are also referred to as a desktop cloud cluster.

Workstation nodes do not need to be dedicated cluster computers, and can be used for other tasks. They can automatically become available to run cluster jobs according to a weekly availability policy that you configure (for example, every night on weekdays and all day on weekends), or they can be brought online manually, depending on the configuration that you choose. If you are running Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later, you can also configure user activity detection settings to help ensure that the cluster jobs do not interrupt other processes on the workstations.

This guide provides step-by-step procedures for adding workstation nodes to your HPC cluster.