http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/ch9/f6f9/763de013-a194-471f-979f-9e25003cf6f9/excelserviceshpcs2008r2_100_ch9.jpg Microsoft Excel has become an indispensible calculation, prototyping, and simulation tool that handles complex multi-variable models.  A fictitious case study is described where the customer, an insurance underwriter, explores over one trillion scenarios to optimize investments that hedge its financial obligations.  Integration of Excel 2010 and Windows HPC Server 2008 R2 maintains the Excel front end but offloads the calculation workload to the cluster.  The result is a reduction of compute time by a factor of ten on a modest four-node cluster. en Tue, 21 May 2013 17:11:38 GMT Tue, 21 May 2013 17:11:38 GMT Rev9