Red Hat Thursday delivered what it called the industry’s first integrated Linux-based High Performance Computing (HPC) platform, otherwise known as the Red Hat HPC Solution, an all-in-one HPC cluster stack that Red Hat and Platform Computing put together over the last year.

The delivery is timely since Microsoft is just pushing out the final code of its Windows HPC Server 2008. Both Microsoft and Red Hat have in mind to broaden HPC’s commercial appeal and get SMBs as well as large accounts to sign on.

The entry-level market is where the real growth is these days, according to IDC, and Microsoft may have better odds of making HPC mainstream than the black arts Unix and Linux practitioners that have dominated HPC so far.

The Red Hat widgetry is supposed to include everything you need to build and manage a complete HPC cluster, historically a long, ugly, pricey, nerve-wracking exercise.

Red Hat claims to have removed the pain and challenges. It says an end-to-end solution can now be deployed in less than an hour.

The Red Hat HPC Solution includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 and Platform Computing’s cluster software framework, Platform Open Cluster Stack 5. It also includes device drivers, a simple cluster installer, cluster management tools, a resource and application monitor, interconnect support and Platform Lava, a job scheduler.

Red Hat, Dell and Platform Computing are offering Platform Open Cluster Stack (OCS) to ease cluster deployment, management and operation of the Red Hat HPC Solution. Red Hat is looking for other vendors to peddle the thing.

Its annual subscription pricing starts at $249 a node. The Microsoft stuff lists for $475 a server.

Red Hat is OEMing Platform Computing’s software and will handle all the support for the combined product.

The widgetry displaces the current operating system-only Red Hat Enterprise Linux Compute Node offering.