What is distributed computing?
Distributed computing utilizes a network of many computers, each accomplishing a portion of an overall task, to achieve a computational result much more quickly than with a single computer. In addition to a higher level of computing power, distributed computing also allows many users to interact and connect openly. Different forms of distributed computing allow for different levels of openness, with most people accepting that a higher degree of openness in a distributed computing system is beneficial. The segment of the Internet most people are most familiar with, the World Wide Web, is also the most recognizable use of distributed computing in the public arena. Many different computers make everything one does while browsing the Internet possible, with each computer assigned a special role within the system. A home computer is used, for example, to run the browser and to break down the information being sent, making it accessible to the end user. A server at your Internet service prov
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.
