Commodity computing: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:37, 6 March 2010

Revision as of 17:46, 18 January 2011

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{{Unreferenced|date=August 2007}}

'''Commodity computing''' is computing done in commodity computers as opposed to supermicrocomputers or boutique computers. Commodity computers are [[computer system]]s manufactured by multiple vendors, incorporating components based on [[open standard]]s. Such systems are said to be based on [[commodity]] components since the standardization process promotes lower costs and less differentiation among vendor's products. A governing principle of commodity computing is that its better to have more lower performance, lower cost hardware working in parallel [[Scalarscalar computing]] (ege.g. [[Advanced Micro Devices|AMD]] x86 [[Complex instruction set computing|CISC]]<ref>http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9154518/IBM_HP_servers_won_t_stop_x86_onslaught_on_Unix</ref>) than it is to have less but more expensive hardware <ref>http://research.google.com/pubs/DistributedSystemsandParallelComputing.html</ref> (eg IBM [[POWER7]]<ref>ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/rg/n/poo03017usen/POO03017USEN.PDF</ref> [[Reduced instruction set computing|RISC]]). At some point the number of discrete systems in a cluster or cloud will be greater than the [[Mean time between failures|MTBF]] for any hardware platform, no matter how reliable, fault tolerance must be built into the controlling software<ref>http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00193ED1V01Y200905CAC006</ref><ref>http://insidehpc.com/2008/06/02/google-fellow-sheds-some-light-on-infrastructure-robustness-in-face-of-failure</ref>. Purchases should be optimized on cost per unit of performance, not just absolute performance per CPU at any cost.

== History ==

=== The Midmid-1960s to Earlyearly 1980s ===

The first computers were large, expensive and proprietary. The move towards commodity computing began when [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] introduced the [[PDP-8]] in 1965. This was a computer that was relatively small and inexpensive enough that a department could purchase one without convening a meeting of the board of directors. The entire [[minicomputer]] industry sprang up to supply the demand for 'small' computers like the PDP-8. Unfortunately, each of the many different brands of minicomputers had to stand on their own because there was no software and very little hardware compatibility between them.

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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 Midmid-1990s ===

The [[IBM PC]] was introduced in 1981 and immediately began displacing Apple II's 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.

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By the mid 1990s, every computer made were based on microprocessors, and the majority of general purpose microprocessors were implementations of the x86 ISA. 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.

== Commodity Computingcomputing in the Presentpresent Dayday ==

Today, there are fewer and fewer general business computing requirements that cannot be met with off-the shelf commodity computers. It is likely that the low -end of the supermicrocomputer genre will continue to be pushed upward by increasingly powerful commodity microcomputers.

When [[10 gigabitGigabit Ethernet]] becomes standard equipment in commodity microcomputer servers, multi-processor [[Computer cluster|cluster]] or [[Grid computing|grid]] systems based on off-the-shelf commodity microcomputers and Ethernet switches will take over more and more computing tasks that can currently be performed only by high- end models of proprietary supermicrossupermicrocomputer like the [[IBM System p]]-series, further eroding the viability of the supermicrosupermicrocomputer industry.

== Characteristics of Commoditycommodity Computerscomputers ==

A large part of the current commodity computing marketplace is based on [[IBM PC compatible]]s.

This typically means systems that are capable of running [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Linux]], or [[PC-DOS]]/[[MS-DOS]], without requiring special drivers.

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* Shares a base instruction set common to many different models.

* Shares an architecture (memory, I/O map and expansion capability) that is common to many different models.

* High degree of mechanical compatibility, internal components ([[Central processing unit|CPU]], [[Random -access memory|RAM]], [[motherboard]], peripheral cards, drives) are interchangeable with other models.

* Software is widely available off -the -shelf.

* Compatible with most available peripherals, works with most right out of the box.

Other characteristics of today's commodity computers include:

* [[ATX]] motherboard footprintform factor.

* Built-in interfaces for [[floppy drive]]s, [[Advanced Technology Attachment|IDE]] CD-ROMs and hard drives.

* Industry-standard [[Peripheral Component Interconnect|PCI]] slots for expansion.

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Some characteristics that are becoming common to many commodity computers and may become part of the commodity computer definition:

* Built-in [[Ethernet]] interface.

* Built-in [[USBUniversal portSerial Bus|USB]]s ports.

* Built-in video.

* Built in interfaces for [[Serial ATA|SATA]] drives.

Standards such as [[SCSI]], [[IEEE 1394 interface|FireWire]], and [[Fibre Channel]] help commodotize computer systems more powerful than typical PCs. Standards such as [[Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture|ATCA]] and [[Carrier Grade Linux]] are helping to commoditize [[telecommunication]]s systems. [[Blade server]]s, [[server farm]]s, and [[computer cluster]]s are also [[computer architecture]]s that exploit commodity [[Computer hardware|hardware]].

== Deployment ==

* [[Google]]

* [[facebookFacebook]]

* [[Yahoo!]]

* [[Twitter]]

* [[GMAILAmazon EC2]]

* [[YoutubeBaidu]]

* [[Amazon EC2IBM]]

* [[baiduImageShack]]

* [[IBMLinkedIn]]

* [[ImageShackNew York Times]]

*[[GWS]]

*[[LinkedIn]]

*[[New York Times]]

== References ==

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== External links ==

*[http://highscalability.com/ highscalability]

*[http://insidehpc.com/2008/06/02/google-fellow-sheds-some-light-on-infrastructure-robustness-in-face-of-failure Inside HPC]

*[http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce-osdi04-slides/index-auto-0021.html Fault tolerance Handled via re-execution]

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[[Category:Computing platforms]]

[[Category:IBM PC compatibles|*]]

[[Category:x86 microprocessors|*]]

[[Category:Personal computers]]

[[Category:x86 microprocessors|*]]