On behalf of the Microsoft High Performance Computing team I am pleased to announce that the HPC Pack 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition, and Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite have hit their 'RTM' (Release to Manufacturing) milestone!

This third version of our product have been in development for two years, and has many new features and enhancements. Check out the 'What's New' document on TechNet and the official product site's Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite overview page for more information.

New to our v3 release is having several 'editions' of the HPC Pack.

• HPC Pack 2008 R2 Express - the 'Express' version is available through the Download Center, and provides job scheduling, SOA, MPI, and cluster management features.
• HPC Pack 2008 R2 Enterprise - an evaluation of the 'Enterprise' version is on the Download Center, and the licensed version will be available through VL, OEM, and MSDN. It has all the features of 'Express' as well as the ability to add Win 7 clients as nodes, and the ability to run certain Excel workbooks and UDFs across your cluster.
• HPC Pack 2008 R2 for Workstations - also available through VL, OEM, and MSDN this is the software that you would install on your Win 7 clients if you want them to connect to your 'Enterprise' cluster for use as compute nodes (called 'workstation nodes')

All three of those, as well as the Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC Edition operating system, are available individually. We also have a 'Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 Suite' product purchaseable through VL and OEM channels that contains the 'Enterprise' HPC Pack and the 'HPC Edition' operating system together.

Please check out the two links mentioned before; other R2 documentation is available on that TechNet site, with more on the way.

Head over to our discussion forums if you have any questions, we'll be happy to help you out!