Compatibility of Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 R2 and HPC Pack 2012 with Previous Versions of HPC Pack

Applies To: Microsoft HPC Pack 2012, Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 R2

This topic provides information about the compatibility of Microsoft® HPC Pack 2012 with previous versions of HPC Pack: Microsoft® HPC Pack 2008 R2 and Microsoft® HPC Pack 2008. This information in this topic also applies generally to the compatibility of the service packs and updates for HPC Pack 2012 (including HPC Pack 2012 R2) with previous versions of HPC Pack.

In this topic:

• System administration compatibility

• Job scheduling compatibility

• MPI compatibility

• Service-oriented architecture (SOA) compatibility

• Windows Azure HPC Scheduler compatibility

• Compatibility of HPC Pack 2012 service packs and updates

System administration compatibility

• Connection to head nodes You can only use HPC Cluster Manager in HPC Pack 2012 to connect to an HPC Pack 2012 head node. You cannot use HPC Cluster Manager from HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008 to connect to an HPC Pack 2012 head node, or vice versa.

• Compatibility of cluster nodes In general, you must run the same version of HPC Pack on the head node of the cluster and on any client computers, compute nodes, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) broker nodes, workstation nodes, unmanaged server nodes, and Windows Azure nodes in the cluster.

• Command-line interface and HPC PowerShell To perform management tasks on an HPC Pack 2012 cluster, you cannot use the command-line interface or the HPC PowerShell cmdlets that are installed in a previous version of HPC Pack; only the command-line tools and HPC cmdlets installed in HPC Pack 2012 are supported.

• Node templates and XML files HPC Pack 2012 can import node templates and node XML files that are exported from HPC Pack 2008 R2. Node templates and node XML files that are exported from HPC Pack 2012 cannot be imported into an HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008 cluster.

• Side-by-side installation of client utilities not supported A side-by-side installation of the client utilities in HPC Pack 2012 and HPC Pack 2008 R2 (or HPC Pack 2008) on the same computer is not supported.

  Note

  To manage a cluster created using a previous version of HPC Pack from a computer on which the HPC Pack 2012 client utilities are installed, you can use Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) to connect remotely to the previous version head node.

• Node management changes The following parameters are deprecated in HPC Pack 2012 for the Set-HpcNode cmdlet and will be removed in a later version of HPC Pack:

  • -Chassis

  • -DataCenter

  • -Rack

• Diagnostic tests compatibility Custom diagnostic tests that run on an HPC Pack 2008 R2 cluster are not supported by HPC Pack 2012 unless recompiled with Microsoft .NET Framework 4. For more information, see the Custom HPC Pack 2008 R2 diagnostic tests must be updated to work with HPC Pack 2012 section in the Release Notes for HPC Pack 2012.

• Monitoring service and metrics

  • Metric rollup support

    HPC Pack 2008 R2 supports the following metric rollups: Average, Sum, Maximum, Minimum. HPC Pack 2012 supports only predefined Average rollups.

  • Metric calculation support

    HPC Pack 2008 R2 supports the following metric calculation rollups: AveragePerNode, AverageAllNodes, SumPerNode, SumAllNodes. HPC Pack 2012 supports only AverageAllNodes and SumAllNodes.

  • Metric target support

    HPC Pack 2008 R2 supports Cluster and ComputeNode metric targets, with each metric able to support a single target. HPC Pack 2012 supports 6 targets: Cluster, HeadNode, ComputeNode, BrokerNode, WorkstationNode, and AzureNode. Each metric can have any combination of targets.

  • Removing dependent metrics

    In HPC Pack 2008 R2, a base metric can be removed without first removing the dependent calculated metric. In HPC Pack 2012, a dependent calculated metric must be removed before the base metric can be removed.

  • Hardware metrics removed The hardware metrics in the following cmdlets have been removed: Get-HpcMetric, Get-HpcMetricValue, and Export-HpcMetric.

• Reporting extensibility Custom reports written for HPC Pack 2008 R2 are not supported by HPC Pack 2012 unless they are modified to connect to the database views that are exposed in HPC Pack 2012. All exposed database views have been moved from the [dbo] schema to the [HpcReportingView] schema in HPC Pack 2012.

• GB18030 support  GB18030 is a Chinese government standard describing the required language and character support necessary for software in China. To support GB18030, the administrator needs to change the collation for the instance of SQL Server used by the cluster to Chinese_PRC_90_CI_AI.

  If you choose the Custom Setup option, Setup uses the same logic as in the minimal and typical options to set the collation that is selected when the Character Set / Sort Order / Windows Collation window is opened.

  For more information, see Specifying the Default Collation for an Instance of SQL Server.

Job scheduling compatibility

• HPC Job Manager compatibility The following table summarizes the compatibility of HPC Job Manager in different versions of HPC Pack with cluster head nodes created by using the different versions of HPC Pack.

  HPC Job Manager version	HPC Pack 2012 head node	HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 head node	HPC Pack 2008 with SP2 head node
  HPC Pack 2012	Supported	All HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 features	All HPC Pack 2008 with SP2 features
  HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4	Supported, except new HPC Pack 2012 features are not available	Supported	All HPC Pack 2008 with SP2 features
  HPC Pack 2008 with SP2	Not supported	Supported, except new HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 features are not available	Supported

  Note

  You cannot submit jobs to an HPC Pack 2012 cluster by using HPC Cluster Manager from a previous version of HPC Pack.

• Job submission command line, HPC PowerShell, and API compatibility HPC Pack 2012 supports job submission and monitoring from HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 and HPC Pack 2008 with SP2 command-line tools, HPC PowerShell scripts (that are running from the HPC PowerShell snap-in in HPC Pack 2012), and .NET Framework and COM job submission application programming interfaces (APIs).

• Client application compatibility HPC Pack 2012 provides API-level compatibility for client applications that are integrated with HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008. These applications might, however, require changes to run on the operating system installed on the nodes in an HPC Pack 2012 cluster. If you encounter problems running your application on a specific version of the Windows® or Windows Server® operating system, consult your software vendor.

  Note

  Applications that use Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, including activation and submission filters that are built with .NET Framework 3.5, are supported in HPC Pack 2012. To run such applications on Windows Server 2012, ensure that the .NET Framework 3.5 features are installed.

• Import and export compatibility HPC Pack 2012 can import job templates, task XML files, and job XML files that are exported from an HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 head node. HPC Pack 2012 can also use job submission and job activation filters that are created for HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4.

  Note

  You can export job templates, task XML files, and job XML files from HPC Pack 2012 and import them into an HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 head node, but they cannot reference features that are new in HPC Pack 2012.

• HPC Web Service API compatibility The HPC Web Service API introduced in HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP2 is supported by the HPC Web Service that can be installed with HPC Pack 2012 to provide HTTP access to the HPC Job Scheduler Service. The Web Service API in HPC Pack 2012 is also supported by the HPC Web Service in HPC Pack 2008 R2, except for features that are new in HPC Pack 2012.

MPI compatibility

• Source compatibility Any message passing interface (MPI) application built previously using HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008 MPI header files can be built by using the HPC Pack 2012 header files.

• Binary compatibility HPC Pack 2012 clusters support MPI binaries that were built by using the MPI SDK for HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008.

• Run script compatibility HPC Pack 2012 supports mpiexec options in previous versions of HPC Pack and some MPI troubleshooting and analysis tools that are available in those versions.

  Note

  • The MS MPI-specific environment variables named MPICH_* are deprecated as of HPC Pack 2012. With HPC Pack 2012, use the corresponding MSMPI_* environment variables.

  • Tracing options are deprecated as of HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP3.

    For more information, see Tracing the Execution of MPI Applications with Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 3 (SP3).

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) compatibility

• Compatibility of SOA-based client applications Client applications that run SOA jobs on an HPC Pack 2008 R2 or HPC Pack 2008 cluster can also be used to run SOA jobs on an HPC Pack 2012 cluster, and vice versa (except when using SOA features that are not supported in the previous version).

• Compatibility of client computers running SOA-based client applications A client computer can run SOA-based client applications that access both an HPC Pack 2012 cluster and an HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 cluster.

• SOA services and SOA session API compatibility HPC Pack 2012 supports SOA service binaries that are compiled with at least .NET Framework 4. Binaries used in an HPC Pack cluster that are compiled with an earlier version of .NET Framework may need to be recompiled with .NET Framework 4 to work with HPC Pack 2012.

• Broker nodes compatibility HPC Pack 2012 broker nodes only run on Windows Server 2012.

Windows Azure HPC Scheduler compatibility

The Windows Azure HPC Scheduler is supported in HPC Pack 2012. However, no backward compatibility is supported. For example, an HPC Pack 2012 SOA client can only communicate with an HPC Pack 2012 Windows Azure HPC Scheduler.

Compatibility of HPC Pack 2012 service packs and updates

The following list summarizes the compatibility of HPC Pack 2012 updated with the latest update (currently HPC Pack 2012 R2) with previous versions of HPC Pack.

• Compatibility of cluster nodes In general, you should update HPC Pack with the same service pack or update on the head node of the cluster and on any compute nodes, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) broker nodes, workstation nodes, unmanaged server nodes, and Windows Azure nodes in the cluster. On-premises nodes that are deployed from bare metal (or are reimaged) and Windows Azure nodes are automatically updated when they are deployed from the updated head node. For more information, see the release notes for the service pack or update.

• Compatibility of cluster management tools HPC Cluster Manager and the cluster management command-line tools and HPC PowerShell cmdlets in the most recent version of HPC Pack 2012 can be used to manage a cluster that is running a previous version of HPC Pack 2012. However, functionality that is available in the more recent version but is not available in the previous version cannot be used. Cluster management tools from a previous version of HPC Pack such as HPC Pack 2008 R2 cannot be used to manage a cluster running the most recent version of HPC Pack 2012.

• Compatibility of job submission tools and applications HPC Job Manager and the job submission command-line tools, HPC PowerShell cmdlets, and client applications based on the HPC Pack APIs and client utilities in the most recent version of HPC Pack 2012 can be used to submit jobs to a cluster that is running the previous version of HPC Pack 2012 or that is running HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4. However, functionality that is available in the most recent version but is not available in the previous versions cannot be used. Job submission tools from HPC Pack 2008 R2 with SP4 and from the previous version of HPC Pack 2012 can also be used to submit jobs to a cluster running the most recent version of HPC Pack 2012.

See also

• Microsoft HPC Pack: Product Evaluation and Planning

• Microsoft HPC Pack: Getting Started