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| url = http://spacejournal.ohio.edu/pdf/Dorband.pdf
| quote = The purpose of commodity cluster computing is to utilize large numbers of readily available computing components for parallel computing to obtaining the greatest amount of useful computations for the least cost. The issue of the cost of a computational resource is key to computational science and data processing at GSFC as it is at most other places, the difference being that the need at GSFC far exceeds any expectation of meeting that need.
}}</ref> It is computing done in commodity computers as opposed to in high-cost [[superminicomputer]]s or in
== Characteristics ==
Such systems are said{{by whom|date=April 2017}} to be based on standardized computer components, since the standardization process promotes lower costs and less differentiation among vendors' products. Standardization and decreased differentiation lower the switching or exit cost from any given vendor, increasing purchasers' leverage and preventing [[
A governing principle of commodity computing is that it is preferable to have more low-performance, low-cost hardware working in parallel (
Purchases should be optimized on cost-per-unit-of-performance, not just on absolute performance-per-CPU at any cost.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}
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When the first general purpose [[microprocessor]] was introduced in 1971 ([[Intel 4004]]) it immediately began chipping away at the low end of the computer market, replacing [[embedded system|embedded minicomputers]] in many industrial devices.
This process accelerated in 1977 with the introduction of the first commodity-like [[microcomputer]], the [[Apple II]]. With the development of the [[VisiCalc]] application in 1979, microcomputers broke out of the factory and began entering office suites in large quantities, but still through the back door.
=== The 1980s to mid-1990s ===
The [[IBM Personal Computer|IBM PC]] was introduced in 1981 and immediately began displacing [[Apple II series|Apple II]] systems in the corporate world, but commodity computing as we know it today truly began when [[Compaq]] developed the first true [[IBM PC compatible]]. More and more PC-compatible microcomputers began coming into big companies through the front door and commodity computing was well established.
During the 1980s, microcomputers began displacing larger computers in a serious way. At first, price was the key justification but by the late 1980s and early 1990s, [[Very-large-scale integration|VLSI]] [[semiconductor]] technology had evolved to the point where microprocessor performance began to eclipse the performance of [[discrete logic]] designs. These traditional designs were limited by [[speed-of-light]] delay issues inherent in any CPU larger than a single chip, and performance alone began driving the success of microprocessor-based systems.
By the mid-1990s, nearly all computers made were based on microprocessors, and the majority of general purpose microprocessors were implementations of the [[x86]] [[instruction set architecture]]. Although there was a time when every traditional computer manufacturer had its own proprietary micro-based designs, there are only a few manufacturers of non-commodity computer systems today.
=== Today ===
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