Ferrari test drives Microsoft's HPC software

Ferrari's overall head of IT, Dario Castello, said the car-design process starts with virtual simulations by Ferrari's high-performance systems, which consist of more than 400 nodes, running thousands of jobs.

"Then, when we find the best options, we build models and we use the wind tunnel for the first physical simulations to narrow the options. Then, what is best is finally tested on the track. But there is a continuous cycle of feedback between this three-stage process," Castello said.

He said that Ferrari was running many systems and that one of them is Windows HPC Server 2008. So, although the Linux and Microsoft systems are running in parallel, they are not being used for the same types of job.

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