Windows Azure Resources

Welcome to the ParaTools encyclopedia of resources, how-to’s, and training materials on migrating parallel high performance computing (HPC) applications from Linux to Windows Azure. The entire application workflow including cross-compilation, job scheduling, data transfer, and visualization is covered here. Many of these materials are also applicable to traditional clusters (i.e. not in the cloud). Pre-compiled binaries are available on each page.

 This work was sponsored by the Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism Team.

Prerequisites

You will need the following materials to work with Linux and Windows Azure:

1. A Windows Azure subscription

2. An HPC Linux virtual machine or installation

3. A Windows virtual machine or installation

4. Optional: Microsoft Visual Studio Professional.

5. (Our materials do not use or require Visual Studio, but some of the sites we link to do.)

Using Windows Azure

• Use Powershell to deploy the Windows Azure HPC Scheduler

• Open a Remote Desktop Connection to a Cluster Head Node

• Copy Files to a Windows Azure Service Instance via Remote Desktop Connection

• Configure Windows Azure Firewall to Allow MPI Communication

• Working with VHD files in Linux and Windows Azure

Application Tutorials

• The Parallel Ocean Program (POP)

• Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)

• NetCDF

Case Studies

• OpenFOAM: Parallel Computational Fluid Dynamics

• Tachyon Raytracer