Microsoft is pragmatic about open source: It
works with open-source projects when a business need is being met. File
sharing between Windows and non-Microsoft operating systems for
high-performance computing scenarios meets that criterion.
The company is sponsoring work at the University of Michigan's
Center for Information Technology Integration to create an open-source
Network File System (NFSv4.1) client that runs on Windows.
Microsoft believes that NFSv4.1 is an
important standard for accessing parallel file systems in the high-performance
computing market, according to a prepared statement by Bob Muglia, the
president of Microsoft's Server and Tools Business.
The company has been making a push into the
HPC computing space since it released Windows Server 2003, HPC Edition. Windows
HPC Server 2008, a high-performance solution that introduced new capabilities
for parallel programming and services-based integration, became available last
September.
That release improved
Microsoft interoperability with non-Windows system infrastructures.