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Microsoft says a Windows-based supercomputer has broken the petaflop speed barrier, but the achievement is not being recognized by the group that tracks the world's fastest supercomputers, because the same machine was able to achieve higher speeds using Linux.

It's an interesting story that demonstrates Microsoft's improving ability to run high-performance applications, while also giving Linux fans reason to smile.

The petaflop barrier was first broken in June 2008, when IBM and Los Alamos achieved a long-sought goal in the supercomputing industry, by building a Linux-based machine that could perform one thousand trillion calculations per second, a remarkable speed known as a "petaflop."

It was the fastest supercomputer in the world at the time, and remained one of just three computers to achieve petaflop speeds through June 2010, when the twice-yearly Top 500 supercomputing sites list was released.

Microsoft, meanwhile, hit its greatest heights when it briefly cracked the top 10 of the Top 500 list in November 2008 with a Windows HPC Server-based cluster at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center. The Shanghai machine achieved speeds of 180 teraflops, less than a fifth of a petaflop.

The newest Top 500 ranking came out today, and Microsoft still hasn't placed a petaflop machine on the prestigious list. But the company claims that one of the Linux-based clusters on the Top 500 list has also achieved petaflop speeds using Windows HPC Server.

The machine is Tsubame 2.0, based at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

"We saw outstanding performance from Windows HPC Server during our Linpack benchmarking run on Tsubame 2.0," Satoshi Matsuoka, professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is quoted as saying in an embargoed Microsoft press release. "It broke the Petaflop barrier and was on par with Linux at this scale. In a power-optimized configuration, it recorded over a Gigaflop/Watt, showing it is nearly three times more energy efficient than an average laptop.  We were very excited to see this level of performance given Windows applications will be an important part of our work with industry partners."

So why isn't Windows credited with breaking the petaflop barrier by the Top 500 organization? Bill Hilf, general manager of Microsoft's technical computing group, answers that question.

Networkworld has the article HERE!