From the standpoint of the average user, today’s computer networks are extremely primitive compared to other networks. While the national power, transportation, and telecommunications networks have evolved to their present state of sophistication and ease of use, computer networks are at an early stage in their evolutionary process. Eventually, users will be unaware that they are using any computer but the one on their desk, because it will have the capability to reach out across the national network and obtain whatever computational resources that are necessary. | Reproduced with permission from Smarr L. and Smarr . 1992 Metacomputing. Communications of the ACM 35 6 . ACM 0002-0782 92 0600-044. Minor changes to the original have been made to conform with house style. 37 Metacomputing Larry Smarr1 and Charles E. Catlett2 1 Cal- IT 2 University of California San Diego California United States 2Argonne National Laboratory Argonne Illinois United States From the standpoint of the average user today s computer networks are extremely primitive compared to other networks. While the national power transportation and telecommunications networks have evolved to their present state of sophistication and ease of use computer networks are at an early stage in their evolutionary process. Eventually users will be unaware that they are using any computer but the one on their desk because it will have the capability to reach out across the national network and obtain whatever computational resources that are necessary. The computing resources transparently available to the user via this networked environment have been called a metacomputer. The metacomputer is a network of heterogeneous computational resources linked by software in such a way that they can be used as easily as a personal computer. In fact the PC can be thought of as a minimetacomputer with a general-purpose microprocessor perhaps floating point-intensive coprocessor a computer to manage the I O - or memory - hierarchy and a specialized audio or graphics chip. Like the metacomputer the minimetacomputer is a heterogeneous environment of computing engines connected by communications links. Driving the software development Grid Computing - Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality. Edited by F. Berman A. Hey and G. Fox 2003 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBN 0-470-85319-0 826 LARRY SMARR AND CHARLES E. CATLETT and system integration of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications NCSA metacomputer are a set of probe metaapplications. The first stage in constructing a .
