Microsoft is releasing the first public beta of Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition. This represnts the Microsoft entry into the world of high performance computing (HPC) and runs on the 64-bit nodes.
32-bit applications can run on these nodes (this is a supported configuration), but will not be able to use the larger memory addressing available on the node.
Check out the Windows Server System HPC home page.
Check out the HPC FAQ.
Microsoft Watch: “Windows Compute Cluster Edition Hits Beta 1”.
There have been some discussions in the media about the use of open source code in the message-passing interface: eWeek: “Open Source Code Finds Way into Microsoft Product”. More details as I get them.