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| What is Distributed Computing? |
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Distributed computing is a science which solves a large problem by giving
small parts of the problem to many computers to solve and then combining the
solutions for the parts into a solution for the problem. Recent
distributed computing projects have been designed to use the computers of
hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over the world, via the Internet, to
look for extra-terrestrial radio signals, to look for prime numbers so large
that they have more than ten million digits, and to find more effective
drugs to fight cancer and the AIDS virus. These projects are so large, and
require so much computing power to solve, that they would be impossible for
any one computer or person to solve in a reasonable amount of time.
This site is designed for non-technical people who are interested in learning about, and participating in, public distributed computing projects which apply distributed computing science to solving real-world problems. |
| Learn more about distributed computing: |
| ThinkQuest has an excellent educational site which describes distributed computing, its history, and some of the current distributed computing projects in 2000. The site is available in English, Français, and Español. |
| Read a detailed article about distributed and grid computing by ExtremeTech. The article was written on May 7, 2002. |
| Read an article about distributed computing by Byte Magazine. The article was written in 1999. |
| Read a great, detailed overview of distributed computing by American Scientist. The article was written in 1998. |
| Major Areas of this Site accessible by the links near the top of each page |
| Forum | A discussion forum for distributed computing ideas and issues, specific projects, teams, etc. |
| Wiki | A user-editable set of translations of this site into other languages, and other user-created content |
| Blog | Kirk Pearson's weblog about distributed computing prrojects and related topics | News and Articles | News stories, informational articles, and press releases about public distributed computing companies and projects |
| Active Projects | Information, statistics and links for distributed computing projects that are active right now and that you can participate in |
| Computing Platforms | Information and links for distributed computing platforms (software applications that host one or more active projects) |
| Upcoming Projects | Information and links for distributed computing projects that are in development |
| Recently Completed Projects | Information, statistics, and links for distributed computing projects that have been completed recently |
| Past Projects | Information, statistics, and links for distributed computing projects that have been completed in the past and/or are no longer active |
| Tools | Information and links for tools to support participants in distributed computing projects |
| Development Platforms | Information and links for development platforms that you can use to create a distributed computing project |
| Conferences | Information and links for conferences about distributed computing research and applications |
| Parody and Fun Sites | Information and links for sites that make fun of major distributed computing projects. SETI@home seems to be a popular target :-) |
| Links | Links to other sites which have distributed computing project links |
| Politics | Information and links about political problems around distributed computing projects and users |
| Teams | Links to distributed computing team websites |
| Books and Journals | Books, journals, and other publications about distributed computing science, project development, specific projects, and related subjects |
| FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions about this site and distributed computing projects |
| This site does not cover P2P projects (which are more about file sharing than about distributed computing), private distributed computing projects (projects in which the general public can't participate), or projects that research distributed computing theory (ways to do distributed computing). It also does not cover grid computing: if you are looking for information about grid computing, Grid Café is a good place to start. Apparently some people are using distributed computing for things such as online poker. This site doesn't cover that. | |
| Click on the following links to see how this site and distributed computing looked in past years: | 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000 |
| Credits | |
| Thank you to the people listed here and to all of the others who help me keep the information on this site up to date! | Burt Altenburg
 ,
Honza Cholt
 ,
Jeff Gilchrist
 ,
Randy Jackson
 ,
Ryan Jackson
,
Clay Johnson
,
Kevin O'Hare
,
Nihang Shah
 ,
Olivier Tableau
 ,
Cedric Vonck
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| Thank you also to the volunteer translators who make this site available in other languages! |
Michail Bogdanov  ,
equn.com group  ,
Dori Ben Dov  ,
Andrea Pacini  ,
Nuno Simões  |
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