Basics of... Supercomputing/HPC

What exactly is #Supercomuting or #HPC and what is the difference between HPC and a mainframe, and and and... this is the next episode of my "Basics of".

At first, there is a general consensus that there are 7 types of computers currently:

• Supercomputer

• Mainframe

• Server Computer

• Workstation Computer

• Personal Computer or PC

• Microcontroller

• Smartphone

While some of these categories are obvious, the difference between a Supercomputer and a Mainframe is perhaps not:

Supercomputers are focused to execute few programs as fast as possible while a mainframe uses its power to execute as many programs concurrently. Supercomputers are very specialized and engineered to perform as many calculations as possible while mainframe could be see as more "generalist".

A good definition of Supercomputing (or HPC - High Performance Computing - often used as the same term) would be:

Supercomputing refers to the processing of massively complex or data-intense problems using the concentrated calculation resources of multiple computer systems working in parallel. A Supercomputer performance is typically measured in (Peta)flops (floating-point operations per second).

Current top Supercomputers can achieve 50 - 150 Petaflops... to put this in perspective, the human brain is estimated to operate at about 1 exaflop (that's 1,000 petaflops).

Interesting also is that (almost) all Supercomputers work with #Linux as operating system.

Supercomputers are mainly used in following use cases: weather, energy, life sciences and manufacturing. But there are also other fields and with the expansion of Artificial Intelligence there is likely more to come.

#BasicsOf #iwork4dell

Other articles of the same series:

• https://www.garudax.id/pulse/basics-patrick-roettger/
• https://www.garudax.id/pulse/basics-blockchain-patrick-roettger/
• https://www.garudax.id/pulse/basics-multi-cloud-patrick-roettger/
• https://www.garudax.id/pulse/basics-kubernetes-patrick-roettger/
• https://www.garudax.id/pulse/basics-artificial-intelligence-patrick-roettger/