Distributed Computing

Imagine thousands of computers, all over the world, all working on the same computing task! When all those computers are connected via a network (like the world-wide Internet network) you have one very big 'distributed', or 'virtual', computer.

This is actually being done, as we speak, by ordinary computer/internet users like you and I. All this is in an effort to carry out some very large computing tasks. There are now a few good operating examples of distributed computing.

Professionally, there is also a large academic effort in this direction (called GRID computing) to provide more computing power to research on a more economic level than running stuff on super-computers.

If your'e interested at the personal level I suggest you start at the BOINC home page and read all about it.

BOINC based projects

SETI@Home is a large distributed computing task (> 350,000 participants and 750,000 computers presently) to help analyse data received by the Aricebo Telescope looking for artificial radio signals (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence).

Einstein@Home yet another large distributed computing task (> 170,000 computers world-wide) to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors.

ClimatePrediction.Net (CPDN) yet another large distributed computing task (> 40,000 computers world-wide) to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century.

Detailed Statistics: ClimatePrediction.Net | Einstein @ Home | SETI @ Home

DIMES

Distributed Internet MEasurements & Simulations (DIMES) is another distributed project making measurements of the Internet (nodes, size, country distribution etc). An example of how the data can be used are Chris Harrison's Internet Maps (based on Feb 2007 DIMES data).

Cybergate9's DIMES Stats

Distributed.Net

Distributed.Net has been running for a number of years. They are undertaking a few projects including: brute force encryption breaking in an effort to win the RSA's RC5-72 encryption challenge. RC5-72 is a form of encryption developed by RSA Labs and they are offering US$10,000 dollars to the 'cracker' of this code! Distributed.Net generally passes on US$1000 to the owner of the actual computer which finds the right key - so why not have a go! The other project Distributed.Net is currently working on is Optimal Golomb Rulers (OGR), a mathematically intensive task also suited to distributed computing.

Cybergate9 RC5-72 Stats Cybergate9 OGR25 Stats