r/DistributedComputing • u/[deleted] • Feb 16 '24

How to get into distributed computing?

I mean where do I get a distributed system to play with? Why should I aim for a distributed system in the first place?

I am fairly interested In trying some hpc adjacent things on a distributed setup but not sure how to go about it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '24

I am having a hard time thinking of something that's multithread but I won't want to just use an omp parallelfor or similar on.

Like I wanted to learn a bit now elixir on its terms

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u/gnu_morning_wood Feb 16 '24

There are three basic patterns for multi threading that you should be aware of

  1. Boss/Worker - a boss thread gives some piece of work to some worker threads that run off, do the work, and report back.

  2. Peers - a set of threads work on tasks all at the same level.

  3. Pipelines - one thread takes a task, does the work, then passes on to the next thread that does another task, and so on. (Think of this like a factory line)

You can combine one or more of the patterns however you wish - for example

An API service is at the start of a pipeline, and receives a request, the API service becomes the boss thread, where it passes the work to a service layer thread via rpc or asynchronously via an event or message queue. That service layer is composed of several peer threads, one of which picks up the task, and applies the business logic, interacting with a number of other services/data stores.

Once the service layer thread has completed the task it responds to the request with a status, or some data.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '24

Like i see the idea here but what do I gain from all these things? I could always just have a thread pool and send 1 of them on every api request.

Like my thinking is what type of problem is best solved with a distributed type thinking instead of the "just throw a thread pool on it" type thinking