High-performance computing

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The term high performance computing (HPC) refers to the use of (parallel) supercomputers and computer clusters, that is, computing systems comprised of multiple (usually mass-produced) processors linked together in a single system with commercially available interconnects. This is in contrast to mainframe computers, which are generally monolithic in nature. While a high level of technical skill is undeniably needed to assemble and use such systems, they can be created from off-the-shelf components. Because of their flexibility, power, and relatively low cost, HPC systems increasingly dominate the world of supercomputing. Usually, computer systems in or above the teraflop-region are counted as HPC-computers.

The term is most commonly associated with computing used for scientific research. A related term, High-performance technical computing (HPTC), generally refers to the engineering applications of cluster-based computing (such as computational fluid dynamics and the building and testing of virtual prototypes). Recently, HPC has come to be applied to business uses of cluster-based supercomputers, such as data warehouses, line-of-business (LOB) applications and transaction processing.

The most powerful high performance computers can be found on the Top 500 list. The top500 list (which consists of the top 500 most powerful computing systems of any kind in the world, including many which are not HPC systems) is updated twice a year, once in June at the ISC European Supercomputing Conference and again at a US Supercomputing Conference in November.

Many ideas for the new wave of grid computing were originally borrowed from HPC.

[edit] See also

High-performance computing (HPC) is a term that arose after the term "supercomputing." HPC is sometimes used as a synonym for supercomputing; but in other contexts, "supercomputer" is used to refer to a more powerful subset of "high performance computers," and the term "supercomputing" becomes a subset of "high performance computing." Confused yet? The usages are fuzzy.

One addendum to the main article is that "high performance computers" and their kin, "supercomputers," are not always assembled from commodity components. In the case of most major vendors (Cray, IBM, SGI, etc.), it is probably more accurate to say that the machines are typically based on commodity parts but often add custom components to these in order to boost performance.