Fifty years of innovation have increased the raw speed of individual computers by a factor of around one million, yet they are still far too slow for many challenging scientific problems. Compare this with the 3 teraflops per second produced by the fastest contemporary supercomputer, and it is clear that more sophisticated analyses will need orders of magnitude more power. Cluster and conquer One solution to the problem of inadequate computer power is to 'cluster' multiple individual computers. This technique, first explored in the early 1980s, is now standard practice in supercomputer centres, research labs and industry. The fastest supercomputers in the world are collections of microprocessors, such as the 8,000-processor ASCI White system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Many research laboratories operate low-cost PC clusters or 'farms' for computing or data analysis.
And good progress has been made on the algorithms needed to exploit thousands of processors effectively. Although clustering can provide significant improvements in total computing power, a cluster remains a dedicated facility, built at a single location. Financial, political and technical constraints place limits on how large such systems can become. Few individual institutions or research groups can afford this level of investment. Internet Computing Rapid improvements in communications technologies are leading many to consider more decentralized approaches to the problem of computing power.