College Eases Management, Fosters Student Interest with ...



For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: casestudiesCustomer: Grove City College Website: gcc.eduCustomer Size: Approximately 500 employeesCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Education—Higher educationCustomer ProfileGrove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, is a four-year college that was founded in 1876. It offers academic programs in everything from music and history to accounting and entrepreneurship.Software and ServicesMicrosoft Server Product PortfolioWindows HPC Server 2008HardwareHP ProLiant BL460c server blades with dual quad-core Intel Xeon E5450 processorsMicrosoft Server Product PortfolioCustomer Solution Case Study00College Eases Management, Fosters Student Interest with Windows HPC Server 2008“Managing our Windows-based cluster is so easy that I no longer dread dealing with any issues that arise, the way that I did with the Linux cluster.”Vince DiStasi, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Grove City CollegeGrove City College needs to prepare students for the fast-changing world of IT so that they can better compete for jobs. To do so, the college includes high-performance computing in its curriculum, but its existing Linux cluster presented barriers to learning. The college deployed a Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster, thereby enriching students’ experiences, reducing the management burden, and lowering total cost of ownership.Business NeedsGrove City College has a three-part mission: to provide a high-quality education in a thoroughly Christian environment at an affordable cost. The college aims to not only give its 2,500 undergraduates a great education but also to supply them with real-world experience to ease their transition into the workforce. To help fulfill its mission, the College embraced high-performance computing (HPC) by deploying a small cluster of HP computers that ran a version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, the IT staff had difficulty managing the cluster because the rest of the college’s IT environment used Microsoft technologies. “Any time there was a problem, I had to reacquaint myself with how to fix it because it certainly didn’t come easily,” recalls Vince DiStasi, Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Grove City College. “Everything from queue management to user account creation was difficult. It was such a pain to deal with that I didn’t manage or monitor the cluster daily—there just wasn’t enough time.”Grove City College also faced challenges when it came to adopting the Linux HPC system. The college’s chemistry department used the HPC system to run Gaussian computational chemistry software, but few other departments included HPC in their curricula. “I wanted to expose more students to the idea of HPC and encourage broader use of the cluster,” says DiStasi. “But most of the other departments favored applications that work with the Windows operating system. For them, using the Linux cluster was more trouble than it was worth.”SolutionIn December 2009, Grove City College decided to implement a cluster that ran on Windows HPC Server 2008 so more students could take advantage of high-performance computing. The cluster comprises four HP ProLiant BL460c server blades, each with dual quad-core Intel Xeon E5450 processors.Deploying the cluster took the College just five hours using the built-in tools that come with Windows HPC Server 2008. “We were surprised and impressed that the process went so smoothly,” says DiStasi. “It was as straightforward as installing the Windows Server operating system, which we can do in our sleep.”Grove City College administrators use the HPC Cluster Manager to handle the day-to-day operations of their Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster. “As opposed to the Linux cluster, where I have to download packages from all over the place to make it work, I now have an integrated set of management tools for Windows HPC Server—all under a single pane of glass,” says DiStasi. “It’s fantastic.”As of June 2010, Grove City College chemistry students now use the Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster to run Gaussian software. Students from any department who want to use the Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster just need to log on to the College network, download the Windows HPC Server 2008 Job Scheduler from a shared drive, and install it on their college-issued Tablet PCs. After a brief in-class training session—which takes less than an hour instead of the several hours necessary to learn Linux—students can run jobs directly from their Tablet PCs using their existing credentials for the Active Directory service. The College plans to make Matlab and Mathematica software available in the near future and anticipates that departments outside of the math and science arenas will also make use of the cluster. “I predict that students in business, sociology, and any other area with large-scale statistical studies will start to take advantage of the computing power and ease of use that we can offer with Windows HPC Server 2008,” says DiStasi.BenefitsGrove City College uses its Windows HPC Server 2008 cluster to further its students’ educational pursuits by providing access to high-performance computing. Additionally, the College enjoys reduced administrative overhead and lower total costs. The benefits for Grove City College include:Easy administration. In addition to the easy deployment of Windows HPC Server 2008, which took five hours versus three weeks for the Linux cluster, the Windows-based cluster takes little effort for the college to manage. “At the beginning and end of each day, I check to make sure that jobs are running okay, which takes about five or 10 minutes—that’s it,” says DiStasi. “Managing our Windows-based cluster is so easy that I no longer dread dealing with any issues that arise, the way that I did with the Linux cluster.”User-friendly environment for students. Grove City College is making it possible for more students to take advantage of the power of HPC through its adoption of Windows HPC Server 2008. “The problem with Linux is that you have to be a ‘Linux geek’ to figure it out. Many students are intimidated because it’s so complicated,” says DiStasi. “With our Windows cluster, there’s no barrier to learning because students are already comfortable working in a Windows environment. They’re able to tackle bigger research problems now, and they’ll be better prepared for the workforce because so many companies rely on Windows.”Lower total cost of ownership. The college realizes a lower total cost of ownership with its Windows-based cluster than with its Linux cluster. Part of that savings is due to the cluster’s minimal management, which keeps operating costs low. “It is clear that installing a similar-sized Linux cluster would have taken significantly more time than it took to install the Windows HPC Server cluster. In addition, Windows HPC Server 2008 has all the deployment and administrative tools under one common interface that is familiar to use,” says DiStasi. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download