The Changing Challenges of Collaborative Algorithmics

Abstract

It seems to be a truism that one can gain computational efficiency by enlisting more computers in the solution of a single computational problem. (We refer to such use of multiple computers as “collaborative computing.”) In order to realize the promise of collaborative computing, however, one must know how to exploit the strengths of the technology used to build the computing platform – the multiple computers and the networks that interconnect them – and how to avoid the weaknesses of the technology. Changes in technology – even apparently modest ones – often call for dramatic changes in algorithmic strategy. In this talk, I describe some of the challenges that the algorithm designer has faced as the dominant collaborative computing platforms have changed.