Availability of Unused Computational Resources in an Ordinary Office Environment

• The study presented in this paper highlights an important issue that was subject for discussionsand research about a decade ago and now have gained new interest with the current advances ofgrid computing and desktop grids. New techniques are being invented on how to utilize desktopcomputers for computational tasks but no other study, to our knowledge, has explored theavailability of the said resources. The general assumption has been that there are resources andthat they are available. The study is based on a survey on the availability of resources in anordinary o±ce environment. The aim of the study was to determine if there are truly usableunder-utilized networked desktop computers available for non-desktop tasks during the off-hours. We found that in more than 96% of the cases the computers in the current investigationwas available for the formation of part-time (night and weekend) computer clusters. Finally wecompare the performance of a full time and a metamorphosic cluster, based on one hypotheticallinear scalable application and a real world welding simulation.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datavetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Sciences (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Datorsystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Computer Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Cluster computing; metamorphosic computing; high performance; survey

Information technology

Informationsteknik

Datateknik

Computer engineering

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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