Peer-to-peer implementations

Summary form only given, as follows. Distributed computing represents an extremely cost-effective way to gain supercomputer-scale power to run certain types of compute-intensive applications. Remarkably, the majority of a PC´s time is spent doing nothing. The average PC is idle between 60 and 90%, even when it is being used. Distributed computing platforms split large computational problems into many small tasks and distribute those tasks together with the algorithm to PCs connected within a corporate network or to the Internet. Applications integrated today include codes that run ´embarrassingly parallel,´ such as docking of small molecules to proteins or Fourier analysis of radio signals. Monte Carlo simulations and applications exploring multidimensional parameter spaces also fall into this category. More recently, ´divide and conquer´ algorithms such as sequence alignment codes have been implemented. Eventually, it will become possible to distribute many more classes of applications using a variety of techniques. Several large enterprises are currently deploying distributed computing technology. Very thorough standards in stability, security, manageability and scalability have to be met. The future will show a convergence and compatibility of different standards such as Globus and Entropia, leading to global computing grids with unprecedented computational capacity.