High Performance Computing – Overview

High Performance Computing – Overview

The term is most commonly associated with computing used for scientific research. A related term, High-performance technical computing (HPTC), generally refers to the engineering applications of cluster-based computing (such as computational fluid dynamics and the building and testing of virtual prototypes). Recently, HPC has come to be applied to business uses of cluster-based supercomputers, such as data warehouses, line-of-business (LOB) applications and transaction processing. High-performance computing (HPC) is a term that arose after the term “supercomputing.” HPC is sometimes used as a synonym for supercomputing; but in other contexts, “supercomputer” is used to refer to a more powerful subset of “high performance computers,” and the term “supercomputing” becomes a subset of “high performance computing.” The potentially confusing overlap of these usages is apparent. [edit] High Productivity Computing To reflect a greater focus on the productivity, rather than just the performance, of large-scale computing systems, many[who?] believe that HPC should now stand for High Productivity Computing.