In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as network computers, or in their simplest form as zero clients. The server does most of the work, which can include launching software programs, performing calculations, and storing data. This contrasts with a rich client or a conventional personal computer; the former is also intended for working in a client–server model but has significant local processing power, while the latter aims to perform its function mostly locally.
A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). Since 2017, supercomputers have existed which can perform over 1017 FLOPS (a hundred quadrillion FLOPS, 100 petaFLOPS or 100 PFLOPS). For comparison, a desktop computer has performance in the range of hundreds of gigaFLOPS (1011) to tens of teraFLOPS (1013). Since November 2017, all of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers run on Linux-based operating systems. Additional research is being conducted in the United States, the European Union, Taiwan, Japan, and China to build faster, more powerful and technologically superior exascale supercomputers.
A server is a computer that provides information to other computers called "clients" on computer network. This architecture is called the client–server model. Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients or performing computations for a client. A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers. A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers.
In computer science, algorithmic efficiency is a property of an algorithm which relates to the amount of computational resources used by the algorithm. Algorithmic efficiency can be thought of as analogous to engineering productivity for a repeating or continuous process.
Energy Star is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of products and devices using different standardized methods. The Energy Star label is found on more than 75 different certified product categories, homes, commercial buildings, and industrial plants. In the United States, the Energy Star label is also shown on the Energy Guide appliance label of qualifying products.
A data center or data centre is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.
High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, is the maximum amount of heat generated by a computer chip or component that the cooling system in a computer is designed to dissipate under any workload.
Green computing, green IT, or ICT sustainability, is the study and practice of environmentally sustainable computing or IT.
In computing, a benchmark is the act of running a computer program, a set of programs, or other operations, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, normally by running a number of standard tests and trials against it.
Urs Hölzle is a Swiss software engineer and technology executive. As Google's eighth employee and its first VP of Engineering, he has shaped much of Google's development processes and infrastructure, as well as its engineering culture. His most notable contributions include leading the development of fundamental cloud infrastructure such as energy-efficient data centers, distributed compute and storage systems, and software-defined networking. Until July 2023, he was the Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure and Google Fellow at Google. In July 2023, he transitioned to being a Google Fellow only.
A data center 64 bit microserver is a server class computer which is based on a system on a chip (SoC). The goal is to integrate all of the server motherboard functions onto a single microchip, except DRAM, boot FLASH and power circuits. Thus, the main chip contains more than only compute cores, caches, memory interfaces and PCI controllers. It typically also contains SATA, networking, serial port and boot FLASH interfaces on the same chip. This eliminates support chips at the board level. Multiple microservers can be put together in a small package to construct dense data center.
In computing, computer performance is the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system. Outside of specific contexts, computer performance is estimated in terms of accuracy, efficiency and speed of executing computer program instructions. When it comes to high computer performance, one or more of the following factors might be involved:
In computing, performance per watt is a measure of the energy efficiency of a particular computer architecture or computer hardware. Literally, it measures the rate of computation that can be delivered by a computer for every watt of power consumed. This rate is typically measured by performance on the LINPACK benchmark when trying to compare between computing systems: an example using this is the Green500 list of supercomputers. Performance per watt has been suggested to be a more sustainable measure of computing than Moore's Law.
Power usage effectiveness (PUE) or power unit efficiency is a ratio that describes how efficiently a computer data center uses energy; specifically, how much energy is used by the computing equipment.
IT energy management or Green IT is the analysis and management of energy demand within the Information Technology department in any organization. IT energy demand accounts for approximately 2% of global CO2 emissions, approximately the same level as aviation, and represents over 10% of all the global energy consumption. IT can account for 25% of a modern office building's energy cost.
Computation offloading is the transfer of resource intensive computational tasks to a separate processor, such as a hardware accelerator, or an external platform, such as a cluster, grid, or a cloud. Offloading to a coprocessor can be used to accelerate applications including: image rendering and mathematical calculations. Offloading computing to an external platform over a network can provide computing power and overcome hardware limitations of a device, such as limited computational power, storage, and energy.
In computing, energy proportionality is a measure of the relationship between power consumed in a computer system, and the rate at which useful work is done. If the overall power consumption is proportional to the computer's utilization, then the machine is said to be energy proportional. Equivalently stated, for an idealized energy proportional computer, the overall energy per operation is constant for all possible workloads and operating conditions.
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) refers to interconnected sensors, instruments, and other devices networked together with computers' industrial applications, including manufacturing and energy management. This connectivity allows for data collection, exchange, and analysis, potentially facilitating improvements in productivity and efficiency as well as other economic benefits. The IIoT is an evolution of a distributed control system (DCS) that allows for a higher degree of automation by using cloud computing to refine and optimize the process controls.
A green data center, or sustainable data center, is a service facility which utilizes energy-efficient technologies. They do not contain obsolete systems, and take advantage of newer, more efficient technologies.
