Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta 2

It's been out for a short while, but the HPC team blog has just announced availability of Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Beta 2. I've been running it on a test rig and first impressions are extremely favourable. I'm particularly liking the additional diagnostic features, and inclusion of a node image capture will save a bit of manual  imagex stress. Some of the new scheduling features (particularly enhanced activation filter) are looking really nice too!
One other thumbs up for R2 is the ability to use a remote SQL Server instance. There are quite a few technical and management reasons why this is a great addition, and the financial benefit when running HA headnodes in an environment where a SQL cluster is already in place is an obvious plus point.

Diagnostics in HPC Server 2008 R2

A very interesting  post on the Windows HPC Team blog regarding diagnostics in HPC Server V3. I'm really looking forward to third party custom diagnostic tests, should be a very powerful feature indeed. Much of our work is based on management and control of individual jobs and groups of linked jobs, so I'm sure we'll be looking to create appropriate custom tests based on this framework.
I can certainly imagine a scenario where a Systems Center Operations Manager management pack kicks off in house custom tests, then alerts warnings and errors back to operations staff via the SCOM console where appropriate.