Introduction to High-Performance Computing: Glossary

Glossary

The following list captures terms that need to be added to this glossary. This is a great way to contribute.

Central processing unit
or simply processor is the (hardware) component of a computer that executes the instructions supplied by a program (software). Most modern desktop computers have multi-core processors, e.g. devices with 2 CPUs are called dual-core, with 4 cores are called quad-core and so on. Each core is a separate physical implementation of the electronic circuitry required to execute instructions.
Cloud (computing)
Virtualised remote computing resources that can be provisioned and deprovisioned as needed.
Cluster
a collection of computers configured to enable collaboration on a common task by means of purposefully configured hardware (e.g., networking) and software (e.g. workload management).
Distributed memory
When multiple tasks are used.
Grid computing
to be defined
High availability computing
to be defined
High performance computing
to be defined
Interconnect
to be defined
Node
to be defined
Parallel
to be defined
Serial
to be defined
Server
to be defined
Shared memory
Using multiple CPUs per task.
Slurm
to be defined
Supercomputer
“… a major scientific instrument …”
Workstation
to be defined
Grid Engine
to be defined
Parallel File System
to be defined
Bash
(Bourne Again Shell), is the default shell for many Linux distributions. It is the primary tool we use for batch processing.
Shell
Computer program that exposes an operating system’s services to a human user or other programs.
Batch Programming
Automating running of more than one command, usually through the use of a batch script (not to be confused with a Bash script).