Commodity computing
Commodity computing (also known as commodity cluster computing) involves the use of large numbers of already-available computing components for
Characteristics
Such systems are said[by whom?] to be based on standardized computer components, since the standardization process promotes lower costs and less differentiation among vendors' products. Standardization and decreased differentiation lower the switching or exit cost from any given vendor, increasing purchasers' leverage and preventing lock-in.
A governing principle of commodity computing is that it is preferable to have more low-performance, low-cost hardware working in parallel (scalar computing) (e.g.
History
The mid-1960s to early 1980s
The first computers were large, expensive and proprietary. The move towards commodity computing began when DEC introduced the PDP-8 in 1965. This was a computer that was relatively small and inexpensive enough that a department could purchase one without convening a meeting of the board of directors. The entire minicomputer industry sprang up to supply the demand for 'small' computers like the PDP-8. Unfortunately, each of the many different brands of minicomputers had to stand on its own because there was no software and very little hardware compatibility between the brands.
When the first general purpose microprocessor was introduced in 1971 (Intel 4004) it immediately began chipping away at the low end of the computer market, replacing embedded minicomputers in many industrial devices.
This process accelerated in 1977 with the introduction of the first commodity-like microcomputer, the Apple II. With the development of the VisiCalc application in 1979, microcomputers broke out of the factory and began entering office suites in large quantities, but still through the back door.
The 1980s to mid-1990s
The
During the 1980s, microcomputers began displacing larger computers in a serious way. At first, price was the key justification but by the late 1980s and early 1990s,
By the mid-1990s, nearly all computers made were based on microprocessors, and the majority of general purpose microprocessors were implementations of the x86 instruction set architecture. Although there was a time when every traditional computer manufacturer had its own proprietary micro-based designs, there are only a few manufacturers of non-commodity computer systems today.
Today
Today, there are fewer and fewer general business computing requirements that cannot be met with off-the-shelf commodity computers. It is likely that the low-end of the supermicrocomputer genre will continue to be pushed upward by increasingly powerful commodity microcomputers.
Deployment
- Amazon EC2
- Baidu
- Google Compute Engine
- ImageShack
- The New York Times
- Yahoo!
See also
References
- ^ John E. Dorband; Josephine Palencia Raytheon; Udaya Ranawake. "Commodity Computing Clusters at Goddard Space Flight Center" (PDF). Goddard Space Flight Center. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
The purpose of commodity cluster computing is to utilize large numbers of readily available computing components for parallel computing to obtaining the greatest amount of useful computations for the least cost. The issue of the cost of a computational resource is key to computational science and data processing at GSFC as it is at most other places, the difference being that the need at GSFC far exceeds any expectation of meeting that need.
- ^ "IBM, HP servers won't stop x86 onslaught on Unix". 9 February 2010.
- ^ "Publications – Google Research".
- ^ ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/rg/n/poo03017usen/POO03017USEN.PDF[permanent dead link]
- .
- ^ "Google Fellow sheds some light on infrastructure, robustness in face of failure | insideHPC.com". Archived from the original on 2011-08-10. Retrieved 2010-03-06.