New class of national computing resources

Prehistory: Vector computers Extreme memory bandwidth Cost efficient for a few applications Shared memory architecture Programming model Large common memory Cluster with fast network Tightly coupled problems with intense communication Explicit message passing Cluster with commodity network Loosely coupled or pleasantly parallel applications GRID
? Future ?: Loosely coupled autonomous servers (e.g. workstations) Trivial parallel applications Peer-to-peer Extremly scalable