SUPER-COMPUTERS
Last updated
Last updated
A super-computer, generally speaking, is a very good scaling distributed computing system which allows for the access to much higher resources that it would be possible on a single dedicated machine. In order to better understand what this is all about, I suggest taking a look at a very good definition of a distributed computing system.
Distributed computing can be, in the most common sense, understood as a concept where multiple computers are working on one single problem.
Often, the problem is sub-divided into multiple parts, each solved by a different computer. Typically, the computers able to communicate with each other over the network allowing to synchronize partial results or memory/data among each other. If carried out properly, these computers - to the outside eye - act as a single entity.
After all, this scheme allows for a massive parallelization and a much faster execution time compared to what would be possible with just one single machine.
That being said, we only need to think about the "decentralization" part. Distributed computing systems in the tradition sense often rely on a central brain, often called the master node, which performs the task splitting, the task distribution and the collection of the results. The absolut cool thing about XEL is, that it has introduced a form of decentralized distributed computing with no central authority. Instead it uses Blockchain technology to form the consensus (that normally would be the task of a master node) and uses a special consensus-based protocol for work distribution, verification and collection.
Now you may ask yourself: "Why do we even need to bother with decentralization? Can't we just use technologies that are already there? I mean, why shouldn't we use already existing centralized solutions as for example BOINC. Well, if you create a project on BOINC, you need to attract people to work on your tasks. If you do not do that, nothing will happen. XEL's apprach is to rely on the Blockchain technology and integrate working on tasks in a way that it is similar to a "mining" process (as known from Bitcoin). Incentivizing by the possible mining rewards, this attracts a whole bunch of crypto affine people to just throw some processing power at you, without the need of you taking care of all that for every single work you post.