I think of the Data Mining Addins for Excel 2007, as data mining tools for common man - they allow anyone to use SQL Server Analysis Services without having to know how to program the backend. It allows you to look for Key Influencers, Detect Categories, Highlight Exceptions, etc. This can be a real benefit for scientists looking to do things like data cleaning directly from Excel.
It good to see the work David Heckerman and Carl Kadie from MSR are doing written up in a case study talking about the benefits of using the Windows Compute Cluster Server...
From Doug Lindsey's blog...
Microsoft Research uses CCS to search for HIV targets Microsoft Research performs cutting-edge research to find human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) immunogen targets. The results can be used in the development of vaccines against the virus. A Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 system run by the Microsoft HPC team significantly speeds up this analysis. Read all about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=201111 Since 2003, scientists at Microsoft Research have been performing research on the design of a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). However, with only six personal computers and 10 processors, the research team struggled to perform statistical analysis, which required a year of computer processing, or CPU time. With the help of the High Performance Computing (HPC) group at Microsoft, the team deployed Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003 on 25 IBM server computers. Now, the research team can run 50 jobs—of 200,000 work items each—in the time it once took to run 1 job. As a result, the research team has gained enough insights to publish in the top scientific journals. The team, which finds Windows Compute Cluster Server simple to deploy, use, manage, and extend, is using it to unravel the puzzles that may one day lead to an HIV vaccine.
Microsoft Research performs cutting-edge research to find human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) immunogen targets. The results can be used in the development of vaccines against the virus. A Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 system run by the Microsoft HPC team significantly speeds up this analysis. Read all about it here: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=201111
Since 2003, scientists at Microsoft Research have been performing research on the design of a vaccine for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). However, with only six personal computers and 10 processors, the research team struggled to perform statistical analysis, which required a year of computer processing, or CPU time. With the help of the High Performance Computing (HPC) group at Microsoft, the team deployed Windows® Compute Cluster Server 2003 on 25 IBM server computers. Now, the research team can run 50 jobs—of 200,000 work items each—in the time it once took to run 1 job. As a result, the research team has gained enough insights to publish in the top scientific journals. The team, which finds Windows Compute Cluster Server simple to deploy, use, manage, and extend, is using it to unravel the puzzles that may one day lead to an HIV vaccine.
HPC Basic Profile Overview The HPC Basic Profile is a proposed Open Grid Forum (OGF) interoperability specification for job submission and management between HPC systems including batch job schedulers. It is based on existing specifications including the WS-I Basic Profile, the WS-I Basic Security Profile, Web Services Addressing, the Job Submission Language and the Basic Execution Service. This entry gives a high level overview of the profile. More detailed information can be found in the HPC Basic Profile specification (which is entering public comment) and the dependent specifications mentioned later in this entry. Since the profile is still open for feedback, the contents of this entry are subject to change.
The HPC Basic Profile is a proposed Open Grid Forum (OGF) interoperability specification for job submission and management between HPC systems including batch job schedulers. It is based on existing specifications including the WS-I Basic Profile, the WS-I Basic Security Profile, Web Services Addressing, the Job Submission Language and the Basic Execution Service. This entry gives a high level overview of the profile. More detailed information can be found in the HPC Basic Profile specification (which is entering public comment) and the dependent specifications mentioned later in this entry. Since the profile is still open for feedback, the contents of this entry are subject to change.