Tracking enterprise technology transformation
Excel Services, grid and Microsoft Compute Cluster
…In our experience, the bias Marc describes is strongest in IT, which has been taught for years that grid computing means Linux and UNIX almost by definition. But the developer community is different, and often more in touch with the scalability requirements of specific applications. These are the hearts and minds Digipede and Microsoft are winning  because adapting applications to the grid needs to be easier, and that’s our strength. Developers who use Microsoft Visual Studio to develop their applications (.NET, COM, or anything else) find the Digipede Framework SDK provides the most natural approach available for adapting their applications to a grid….
An interesting article talking about grid in the financial sector, there remains great demand for grid technologies within some financial organizations, whether it’s windows or unix based, the demand from the windows based market tends to be those applications we’ve scaled up either from desktops, or from 16 servers to hundreds, where managing the workload within grid makes more sense.
I see adoption of Microsoft Compute Cluster rising due to the lower licensing costs, couple it with Excel and I see a large percentage of the typical grid/server/excel based applications being replaced/upgraded to this new Excel services platform.
We agree. Analysts, traders, and quants live in Excel. It is most unnatural (and painful) to scale out calculations behind Excel using a Linux-based grid. Far easier is to use Microsoft Compute Cluster and the Digipede Network — a combination that is gaining attention in finacial services companies large and small.
With the new Compute Cluster edition, Microsoft has an OS offering that is price competitive in grid deployments of all sizes. Combine that with ease of adminsitration and an intuitive programming model, and we also see adoption rising — rapidly.