Building distributed applications with BOINC
IDLE CYCLES
Grid computing lets little PCs work on big problems. You can use the grid system of the famous SETI@home project to build your own grid computing solutions.
With the advent of the information society, office PCs spawned at mind boggling rates in most companies. These computers share most of their time with a common task: the idle task. Activities such as browsing the Internet or working on an office document aren’t very challenging for contemporary CPUs. If you are sitting next to your PC, and you are not currently encoding audio or videos, invoke the uptime command. The average load will surely be far below 1.0. This low level of usage indicates a poor workload on your PC, which means that your boss paid too much for it. A basic idea behind grid computing is to harness these idle CPU cycles for something useful. For instance, you could use an idle desktop computer to process biomedical signals or simulate an environmental model.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Tag Cloud
News
-
Password Management Services Vulnerable to Attack
Should you trust an online service to store your online passwords?
-
New Raspberry Pi Adds Two USB Ports
New B+ board lets you build cool things without the complication of a powered USB hub.
-
Microsoft Grabs No-IP.com Domains
Redmond rushes in to root out alleged malware haven.
-
Firefox Steps into 3D
New initiative will bring futuristic virtual reality effects to the web surfing experience.
-
New Trojan Targets Online Banking
Dyreza malware launches a man-in-the-middle attack that compromises SSL.
-
HP Rolls Out Massive Cloud Network
New cloud combines worldwide access with local attention to data security.
-
New Attack Targets Wireless Logins
A first cousin of the recent Heartbleed attack affects EAP-based wireless and peer-to-peer authentication.
-
Geeks Petition for Free Lenovo BIOS
FOSS community acts to protect freedom of choice for laptop devices.
-
Firefox Says Yes to DRM
Quintessential open source browser shores up its market share with a step toward the proprietary dark side.
-
Webcam Hijackers Busted
Authorities in 16 countries take action against users of the imfamous BlackShades malware tool.