Deploy an HPC Pack Head Node in an Azure VM

This topic shows you how to use the Azure Management Portal to configure an Active Directory domain controller in Azure and then deploy a Microsoft® HPC Pack head node in an Azure virtual machine.

The head node of an HPC Pack cluster has tools and settings for you to deploy, manage and submit jobs to a cluster of Windows-based compute resources (cluster nodes). After you deploy a head node in an Azure VM, you can easily add clustered compute resources in Azure to run your compute intensive workloads, such as intrinsically parallel applications.

For an overview of the steps to plan and deploy an HPC Pack head node, see the Getting Started Guide for HPC Pack. The Getting Started Guide focuses on deploying a cluster head node in an on-premises environment. Many of the considerations also apply to deploying a head node in an Azure VM.

In this topic:

• Prerequisites

• Steps to deploy the head node

  • Step 1: Create an Azure virtual network

  • Step 2: Create a domain controller in Azure

  • Step 3: Create and configure the VM for the head node

  • Step 4: Install and configure HPC Pack on the head node

  • Step 5: Complete the Deployment To-do List

Prerequisites

Following are prerequisites to deploy an HPC Pack head node in an Azure VM.

Azure subscription   You must obtain or be able to access an Azure subscription.

• To create an Azure account, go to the Microsoft Azure site.

• To access an existing subscription, go to the Azure Management Portal.

HPC Pack installation media   The free installation package for the latest version of HPC Pack (HPC Pack 2012 R2) is available from the Microsoft Download Center.

Steps to deploy the head node

This section contains step-by-step procedures to install an HPC Pack head node in an Azure VM. The head node will be joined to a new Active Directory domain that you will also create in Azure.

Step 1: Create an Azure virtual network

In this step you create a cloud-only Azure virtual network. You will deploy the Active Directory domain and the HPC Pack head node in this network. To create a cloud-only Azure virtual network, follow the steps in How to create a virtual network (VNet).

Additional considerations

• You can accept the default configuration of the virtual network address space and subnets (a single subnet called Subnet-1 by default).

• If you plan to use a compute intensive instance size (A8 – A11) for the HPC Pack head node or when later adding compute resources to the cluster, choose a region in which the instances are available. When using A8 or A9 instances, also ensure that the address space of the virtual network does not overlap the address space reserved by the RDMA network in Azure (172.16.0.0/12). For more information, see About the A8, A9, A10, and A11 Compute Intensive Instances.

Step 2: Create a domain controller in Azure

In this step you create an Azure VM that will be a domain controller for the Active Directory domain in which you will deploy the head node. For a step-by-step tutorial to create a new Active Directory forest in Azure, see Install a new Active Directory forest in Azure. For conceptual guidance about installing Active Directory Domain Services in Azure, see Guidelines for Deploying Windows Server Active Directory on Azure VMs.

Additional considerations

• We recommend that you create a new cloud service for the VM. When you do this, in Region/affinity group/virtual network, select the virtual network that you created in Step 1: Create an Azure virtual network. In Virtual network subnets, select the default subnet created in the virtual network.

• Use standard Windows Server procedures and default settings to add the Active Directory Domain Services role to the VM that you created. Then, promote the server as a domain controller in a new forest. For additional background and options to perform these tasks in Windows Server, see Install Active Directory Domain Services (Level 100).

• The VM is automatically assigned the first available IPv4 address in the subnet (10.0.0.4 if you used default network settings). If you want to set a static address instead, see Configure a Static Internal IP Address (DIP) for a VM.

• After you configure the domain controller, create two new domain user accounts and configure them as follows:

  1. Add one account to the Domain Admins group on the VM. You will need the credentials of this account in a later step to join the VM for the head node to the domain.

  2. Configure the second account as a domain user account. You will add this account in a later step to the Administrators group on the head node, to be an HPC cluster administrator.

Step 3: Create and configure the VM for the head node

In this step you create and configure an Azure VM that you will deploy as the head node of the Windows HPC cluster. Then, join the VM to the Active Directory domain that you previously created. You can use standard procedures to create the VM in the Azure Management Portal and then connect to the VM to complete the network configuration and join the domain.

To create a VM for the head node in the Management Portal

1. In the Management Portal, click New, click VM, and then click From Gallery.

2. On the Choose an Image page, select an edition of Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2012 for the VM operating system. This procedure assumes you are using a version of Windows Server that does not have HPC Pack installed.

3. On the VM configuration pages, do the following:

   1. Provide a computer name for the VM, and administrator credentials.

   2. Choose a VM size of at least A3, which provides adequate hardware capacity for the head node in many scenarios. For larger scale deployments, or to deploy cluster compute resources by using the A8 or A9 compute intensive instances, consider a larger VM size for the head node.

   3. In Cloud service, select Create a new cloud service and provide a DNS name for the cloud service.

   4. In Region/affinity group/virtual network, select the virtual network that you created in Step 1: Create an Azure virtual network. In Virtual network subnets, select the default subnet in the virtual network.

   5. In Storage account, select an existing storage account that is in the same region as the virtual network that you created, or select Use an automatically generated storage account.

   6. In Endpoints, add a new endpoint by selecting HTTPS. Then complete the wizard.

Additional configuration steps for the head node VM

• Configure the DNS server address and join the VM to the domain   To join the VM for the head node to the Active Directory domain that you created in Azure, configure the preferred DNS server address for the connection to the virtual network with the IPv4 address of the Active Directory domain controller. If you followed the recommended settings in this topic, the IPv4 address of the Active Directory domain controller is 10.0.0.4. Then, use standard Windows Server procedures to join the VM to the Active Directory domain.

• Attach and format a data disk (optional)   After the VM for the head node is created, you can optionally attach and format a data disk (suggested size: 120 GB). You can use the disk in a later step as the location for the required databases that HPC Pack installs annd manages by default on the head node. For a simple proof-of-concept deployment of HPC Pack, you can choose instead to install the HPC databases on the operating system disk on the head node. In this case, you do need to attach a disk. For steps to add a data disk to an Azure VM, see How to Attach a Data Disk to a VM.

• Add a domain user account to the local Administrators group   Use standard procedures in Windows Server to add a domain user account that you created in a previous step to the local Administrators group on the head node VM. This account will be used to install HPC Pack on the VM.

Step 4: Install and configure HPC Pack on the head node

In this step you install HPC Pack on the head node in Azure. The procedure is essentially the same as the one used to deploy an on-premises head node. For detailed steps, see Install Microsoft HPC Pack on the head node computer in the Getting Started Guide for HPC Pack.

To install HPC Pack on the head node

1. Connect to the VM for the head node by using a domain user account that you previously added to the local Administrators group on the VM.

2. Download the HPC Pack setup files from the Microsoft Download Center and extract them to a location on the VM.

   Note

   To download files to the Azure VM, you might need to temporarily disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration for Administrators. Because of the size of the setup files, it can take some time to complete the download.

3. From the setup files, run Setup.exe and follow the steps to create a new HPC cluster by creating a head node.

4. On the HPC DB Configuration page, select the head node as the location for each of the five HPC databases (the default configuration). During the installation, SQL Server 2012 Express will be installed on the head node, and the databases will be created in a new database instance there.

5. On the Local Database Folders page, select Install all databases in the same folders. To store the database data and database log files, specify a folder on the operating system disk, or optionally select a folder such as Z:\ClusterDB that is on a data disk that is attached to the VM (if you configured one).

6. On the Install Location page, accept the default settings. You can optionally configure settings to store program and runtime data on a data disk that is attached to the VM (if you configured one).

7. Follow the remaining steps in the installation wizard to complete the installation of HPC Pack.

   Important

   • During installation, if you need to restart the VM, reconnect, and resume the installation of HPC Pack.
     
     
   • During the installation, you might see a Windows PowerShell warning message similar to “No static IP addresses were found on this computer.” You can safely ignore this warning.
     
     

Step 5: Complete the Deployment To-do List

After you deploy the head node of your HPC cluster, configure the head node by following the Deployment To-do List in HPC Cluster Manager. At a minimum, complete the required deployment tasks. For more information about the configuration tasks, see Configure the Head Node in the Getting Started Guide for HPC Pack. After you complete the tasks, the head node of the HPC Pack cluster is ready to add compute resources and then run jobs.

Additional considerations for completing the required tasks in the Deployment To-do List:

1. Configure your network   For this scenario, select Topology 5 (all nodes only on an enterprise network).

2. Provide installation credentials   You can provide the credentials that you used to install HPC Pack. These credentials are used only when adding domain-joined compute nodes to the cluster.

3. Configure the naming of new nodes   You can accept the default configuration. The naming series only generates names for domain-joined compute nodes.

4. Create a node template  We recommend that you use the Create Node Template Wizard to create a compute node template, which you can optionally use later to add preconfigured compute nodes in Azure VMs. On the Select Deployment Type page of the wizard, select Without operating system.

See Also

Concepts

Microsoft HPC Pack in Azure VMs
Create an HPC Cluster with the HPC Pack IaaS Deployment Script
Create a Head Node with the Microsoft HPC Pack VM Image
Add Compute Node VMs to an HPC Pack Cluster in Azure

Other Resources

Burst to Azure with Microsoft HPC Pack
Getting Started Guide for HPC Pack