Creating a 'Service Pack integrated' installation point

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If you are only deploying a few new clusters across your network, then applying the latest HPC Pack service pack to each head node prior to deploying its compute nodes is a pretty simple workflow. You install your head node in your favorite way (either by walking through the setup wizard, or by using the unattended installation command line options to setup.exe), then you install the service pack (interactively or via unattended command line installation), reboot, and you are ready to rock and roll - any compute node that you deploy from that head node will automatically have the service pack version of the files installed.

But what if you are deploying a dozen different clusters? Then the extra 5 minutes per head node to install the service pack & reboot starts to add up!

In that case you can follow this very simple procedure to create an installation folder on your network that can be used to create a new head node with the service pack already 'built-in.'

  1. Copy the entire contents of your original HPC Pack 2008 R2 DVD to a folder on your computer i.e. c:\HPCPackInstall (This will take approximately 1.5 gigabytes of space)
  2. Download the HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 'media integration pack' zip file from the Microsoft Download Center
  3. Extract the files from the zip archive to a folder on your computer i.e. c:\HPCSP2Files
  4. Open up the folders you created in step 1 and step 3 (i.e. c:\HPCPackInstall, c:\HPCSP2Files) in Explorer
  5. Drag all the files from the second (c:\HPCSP2Files) folder in to the c:\HPCPackInstall folder, and for any 'Copy File' dialogs that come up select "Copy and Replace" and in any 'Confirm Folder Replace' dialogs select 'Yes' to 'Merge' the folders.

The new installation folder that you created is now ready to use. Any head node that you install from this new installation point will automatically have the latest service pack files installed, and any compute nodes deployed from that head node will of course also have the latest service pack files installed automatically.

If you want to make an integrated Service Pack 1 installation point follow these steps: (Since SP2 has already been released, you should follow the instructions above so that you have the latest supported software!)

  1. Copy the entire contents of your original HPC Pack 2008 R2 DVD to a folder on your computer i.e. c:\HPCPackInstall (This will take approximately 1.5 gigabytes of space)
  2. Download the HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 installer from the Microsoft Download Center
  3. If you do not currently have an HPC Pack 2008 R2 head node set up, install it now
  4. Install the HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 on the head node, follow all the standard Service Pack installation steps, rebooting as necessary.
  5. Open up the folder you created in step 1 (i.e. c:\HPCPackInstall) in Explorer
  6. Open up the folder that the head node uses to deploy new nodes in another Explorer window - this is the special REMINST file share on your headnode, so \\<headnode-name>\REMINST
  7. Drag all the files from the REMINST folder in to the c:\HPCPackInstall folder, and for any 'Copy File' dialogs that come up select "Copy and Replace" and in any 'Confirm Folder Replace' dialogs select 'Yes' to 'Merge' the folders.
    1. If there were an 'integration packs' available for download, extract the contents of the archives and merge them in to your new installation folder (i.e. c:\HPCPackInstall) in the order that they were release

Note:

  • The SP1 installation folder that you create using this method can only be used to install a head node of the same 'Edition' as what the head node in step 3 was running - So if your Step 3 headnode is running 'Express' this install folder can only produce 'Express' head nodes 
  • This procedure only works with HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Packs, it does not work with non-service pack updates (aka patches/hotfixes/qfes)