What is super computing?

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:

1. They can replace experimentation in the cases where experiments are hazardous, expensive or even impossible to perform or with the help of instruments.
2. Help to design engineered products such as automotives, aerospace, nano-technology, and also new material designs by using up to 10,000 atoms.
3. 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.
4. 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:

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

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