Re:Supercomputer or many not-so-super computers? (Score 1)

The usual distinction between a supercomputer (that may be a cluster) and distributed computing is that in a supercomputer, all the individual computers are under central control. In a distributed computing environment you control your computer and provide resources to someone else's cluster.

The difficulty arises because so many people use similar phrases for slightly different things. You can argue that the second you have more than one processor you are in a 'distributed' computing environment as you are distributing the computation. A cluster is a distributed computer as it distributes the computation over a number of computers (but remains in complete control of them all), however more often distributed computing refers to the case that a number of separately controlled computers provide computing resources to a particular task. Its sort of the reverse of the traditional model of time-sharing computers, where you had a central computer that users shared to do their work, in a distributed computing environment the work time-shares the users computers.