What are super computers - applications of super computing

Articles

Sponsor links

What is super computing?

Historically, scientists have been searching for the fundamental laws and studies that govern our universe. There are three main techniques which had been used for all scientific investigations i.e. observational science, experimental science and theoretical science. There are really four fundamental methods of scientific research, one of which involves super computing. Firstly Super computers were introduced in late 1960s and were designed primarily by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation. Until the Cray left to form his own company with the name of Cray Research then this computer led the market in 1970s. Cray holding the top spot in super computing for a long of five years i.e. (1985-1990) because he took the market of super computer with his new and modified designs. There were large number of competitors who entered the market of super computer in 1980 but most of them were disappeared in the mid of1990s due the new designs made by Cray.

A type of computer which is used to focus the applications that requires large mathematical and difficult calculations at frontline of processing capacity is known as Super computer. It is fastest computer as compared to ordinary computer because supercomputers involve solving advanced scientific problems. Supercomputers supported by high powered graphics workstations are extremely valuable resources for a wide range of scientific investigations. Fast performance of supercomputers made them more important in for all types of scientific researches like weather forecasting etc. In 1970s, supercomputers were mostly run on scalar process principle but now to improve its working and efficiency no. of new technologies were developed such as liquid cooling, parallel file system, vector processing, striped disk and non uniform memory access. Currently there are many such types of supercomputers as the GRAPE for molecular dynamics and astrophysics and so many different types.

Types of super computers

Two types of supercomputer exist. One type has several extremely complex and expensive processors that carry out computations serially, one at a time and the second type has thousands of simple, inexpensive processors connected in parallel to performing the billions of task per seconds.

Applications of Supercomputers:

Due to their high speed processing ability of Super computers there are several applications of such computers which are used in scientific and research woks such as Graphics animation, weather forecasting, work of nuclear research, petroleum research works, molecular modeling and crypt analysis etc. Most important technological activities use supercomputers in fundamental and essential ways. These include physical phenomena such as climate change, energy, environment, weapons, the analysis of data such as national security intelligence, the behavior of molecules in life sciences, protein folding, and genome sequencing and also applicable on different kinds of medical treatments. Two major applications of supercomputers are Missile trajectory simulation and Gypsy moth growth population simulation.
Pros and Cons of Supercomputers:

There are many advantages of super computers which are really important for our daily life but at the same time where these computers have great advantages some disadvantages are also present.

Pros of Supercomputers:

They can replace experimentation in the cases where experiments are hazardous, expensive or even impossible to perform or with the help of instruments.
Help to design engineered products such as automotives, aerospace, nano-technology, and also new material designs by using up to 10,000 atoms.
They are used to calculate and show the conditions, temperature, speed, voltages etc like we might be see in a power plant, traffic control office etc.
Their use is of strategic importance to national security and defense, as well as for research and development in many areas of science and engineering.

Cons of Supercomputers:

The construction of Supercomputers is an incredibly expensive task because user is charged according to no. of processors.
They are not portable and are very specialized.

Related Articles
- Hight Performance Computing
- Distrubted Computing
- What is Quantum Computing
- What is Parallel Computing
- Autonomic computing

Useful & Related Links

Other Improtant topics
Computer Network Architechture :: Data recovery :: What is Data Mining & techniques :: Security issues of Computer :: Frame Relay :: How to create wireless groups :: How to design security policy for network :: How to Troubleshoot LAN :: How to Troubleshoot WLAN :: Infrared Network :: Introduction to Active Directory :: Network Management Software :: Network ports List :: Network Security Software :: Networking FAQ :: Online Security Threat :: Satellite Communication :: Submarine Communication Cable :: Telecommunication Networks :: WAN Technology :: What is Cryptography :: What is Optical Router :: Working Of Telnet :: Linux Server Adminstatrion :: Wireless Bridges set up techniques :: Digital Communication :: How to Configure Linksys wireless bridge :: How to setup wireless repeater :: Distributed Computing :: Hight Performance Computing :: Parallel computing :: Quantum Computing :: Super Computing :: Cloud Computing :: How to configure print server :: How video conferencing works :: Setting up TCP/IP network :: Recover lost hard drive data :: How to solve network performance problems :: 3GPP2 Multimedia Domain Architecture :: Network management model and architechture :: What is protocol analysis & Analyzer :: What is network address translator :: Internet network architecture :: Types of information technology :: What is DSL technology :: Dsl concept :: Dsl vs Cable internet :: Network simulator :: Next generation networks :: What is Switched mesh :: What is 127.0.0.1 :: How to change mac address :: How to flush dns :: EV-DO Rev. B Technology? :: What is network protocol :: What is ASIC :: Blu ray Technology :: Field Program Gate Array (FPGA) :: Computer networking with ethernet hub :: Intelligent networks :: Adsl problems and oppertunities :: Dsl components :: What is hub :: What is networking switch :: Hubs Vs Switches :: Frame relay networks