Windows 2008 Server HPC and Qube

[Rahul]

I have read this previous thread and understand Qube does work with HPC. Since I don't have any experience on this matter and I was wondering how do I do deploy on each node.

Is it by using remote desktop service and install the Qube node license and other apps along with their plugins or scripts in particular nodes? Finally is there any head ups that any of you can offer with your experience with HPC and Qube.

Thanks in advance,

Rahul
VFX artist
apostrophefilms.com

[jburk]

We do run on 2008 HPC, but only if you don't install the Cluster pack.  Essentially, only install the Server operating system, and then the qube core and worker components.

In this mode, the Server HPC nodes are similar to any other Windows Server OS version, except that the OS starts up ~much~ faster and has less of a resource footprint.

We've also noticed that our Qube 6.0 msi installers are having some issues with the permsisions on Windows 7 / Vista / 2008.

The recommended install procedure for these OS's is to uninstall any previous versions of Qube, along with the GUI, supervisor, and worker, and then open a command prompt with "elevated privileges" (Microsoft's term).  From this "privileged" command promp, perform the install with the msiexec utility:

Code: [Select]

msiexec /i <path_to_msi_file>

Do this for each of the Qube components that you need to install on the machine in question.

[Rahul]

We do run on 2008 HPC, but only if you don't install the Cluster pack.  Essentially, only install the Server operating system, and then the qube core and worker components.

In this mode, the Server HPC nodes are similar to any other Windows Server OS version, except that the OS starts up ~much~ faster and has less of a resource footprint.

So without installing Cluster pack can I get can get the power of Cluster computing through Qube? Or is Cluster computing is not required for the render farm management?

btw, we are using IBM server blades, windows server 2008 on head node and windows 7 on each compute nodes. We will be installing Qube early next week and since we are new to this topic, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Rahul
VFX artist
apostrophefilms.com

[Rahul]

The reason I thought of installing cluster pack is due it's OS level management tools and  since Qube being a render job queue software which may not have those system utilities and monitoring capabilities.

But I am still not sure whether HPC clustering is a an effective way of render farm deployment?

[jburk]

No, HPC is not an effective method of host deployment.

But the Windows Server 2008 HPC OS by itself (without Cluster pack) is still a pretty decent OS for a farm worker node.