Software tools

Software tools for distributed processing contain standard APIs such as MPI and PVM and open source-based software solutions such as Beowulf and openMosix which facilitate the creation of a sort of "virtual supercomputer" from a collection of ordinary workstations or servers. Technology like Rendezvous pave the way for the making of ad hoc computer clusters. An example of this is the distributed rendering function in Apple's Shake compositing function. Computers running the Shake software simply need to be in proximity to each other, in networking terms, to automatically discover and use each other's resources. While no one has yet built an ad hoc computer cluster that rivals even yesteryear's supercomputers, the line between desktop, or even laptop, and supercomputer is beginning to blur, and is probable to continue to blur as built-in support for parallelism and distributed processing increases in mainstream desktop operating systems. An easy programming language for supercomputers remains an open explore topic in Computer Science.