Digging through the versions

One thing I enjoy about Windows HPC server (and previously CCS) is a good discussion on versions, naming and compatibility. It's a veritable cauldron of confusion!
Here's my quick naming and compatibility matrix for head nodes / compute nodes, hope it helps more than hinders :)

OS version along the top, HPC Pack version down the left.

	Windows Server 2003 x64 Std / Ent Edition (+SP2; +R2)	Windows Server 2003 x64 HPC Edition (+SP2; +R2)	Windows Server 2008 Std / Ent Edition x64 (+SP2)	Windows Server 2008 HPC Edition x64 (+SP2)	Windows Server 2008 R2 Std / Ent Edition	Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition BETA
2003 Compute Cluster Pack (+SP1)	Head node Compute nodes	Headnode Compute nodes	Not Supported	Not Supported	Not Supported	Not Supported
2008 HPC Pack (+SP1)	Not Supported	Not Supported	Head node Compute nodes	Head node Compute nodes	Not Supported	Not Supported
2008 HPC Pack R2 BETA	Not Supported	Not Supported	Compute nodes only	Compute nodes only	Head node Compute nodes	Head node Compute nodes

There's more of this type of thing surrounding SDK and Client component versions, I'll post about that later...

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.