CHAPTER 1 The World of Computers
Grid computing Millions of personal computers, and even some server computers, remain idle or substantially underutilized most of the time. This is an amazing amount of unused computing capacity. Several companies have solicited the use of this unused computing capacity from thousands of personal computer owners. This capacity is integrated via the Internet and offered as a grid computing service. Grid computing provides a cluster of computers that can provide the potential to collectively solve complex problems relatively inexpensively. Some experts say that up to 80 percent of problems now being addressed by supercomputers can be solved via grid computing. Entropia has over 12,000 computers in its grid computing service, which has provided 800 million machine hours toward solving problems relating to medical, environmental, and economic research. The computing grid has been used for over 1,000,000 computing tasks.