Intel Corp.'s Core 2 Duo processor, which has a pair of processor cores built into the same chip. (Intel)

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a supercomputer took seven-and-a-half million years to calculate the answer to "life, the universe and everything."

The resulting numeric value of 42 then drove a need to discover "the ultimate question," a job that would only take another 10 million years using an even more powerful computer in the form of planet Earth. It's an absurdist's vision written three decades ago when mainframes were primitive and pokey, and personal computing was just making its debut. But these days, the concept of supercomputing power solving problems for us is definitely closer to reality than fiction.

Granted, finding the origins of creation is a bit beyond the scope of the average IT worker's job description. But for those more anchored in the here and now, the power of supercomputing is making its way to even the small business level, thanks to the mainstream availability of multi-core systems packing processing power that knocks the socks off the previous generation of single-core machines.

Multi-core processing involves building several processing cores onto one chip to improve a computer's processing or "brain" power. Multi-core technology can also cut energy consumption and help computers run cooler.

With multi-core technology, a single computing task can be split into pieces that are handled simultaneously by several processors, getting the job done faster and more efficiently than a single core could. Multi-core processors also allow the same computer to handle a number of completely different jobs or run several programs simultaneously, which each one allocated to a different core.

The first dual-core processors were made commercially available in 2005 by Intel, a move that was quickly followed by chip-making rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). When that happened, business owners say it represented a giant leap forward in bringing affordable sci-fi grade processing power to the masses. And although it took years for the industry to evolve from single to multi-core chips, some businesses have also started to test drive newer and faster quad-core systems that have four processors on a single chip. Intel reports that prototypes have already incorporated as many as 80 cores onto a single chip. (This concept is not to be confused with multi-processing systems, in which multiple central processing chips are contained within one computer.)

"This capability is a big deal," says Doug Cooper, country manager for Intel of Canada Ltd. in Toronto, adding that it's also generally more economical to build and operate a multi-core machine. "We're now seeing devices that can deliver many times the performance of [single core processors] at 10 per cent of the price."

The die for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD's) Phenom quad-core processor, which contains four processing engines on a single chip.(AMD)

Accelerated computing

So what could all that extra brain power mean for the everyday business? More horsepower and more advanced analytical thinking than many would have thought possible in a single machine just a few years ago. And not having to wait a few million years or build a planet-size data centre to get the answers to complex questions.

According to Chris Pratt, strategic initiatives executive for IBM Canada in Markham, Ont., "Applications demand higher levels of raw calculating power than ever before. Now our imaginations are less constrained by hardware limitations because large problems can be worked on by more and more people."

That translates into much more sophisticated capabilities in computers available at prices that smaller businesses can afford, allowing them to handle higher volumes of data and complex computational jobs that were once reserved for the larger enterprise. These jobs include anything from drug interaction studies, medical research, crash test simulations and complex digital media projects, to fraud analysis, and tracking or predicting weather and traffic patterns.

GEOTrac

For Calgary-based GEOTrac, a provider of GPS fleet management services for the oil and gas industry, dual-core has been critical in helping the company handle exponential growth in the amount of data being worked on and the complexity of what's being done with it.

"Today we're processing 250 transactions per second and bringing in 20 million bytes of information a month from the field for thousands of customers — from satellite signals and text communications, to minute-by-minute vehicle diagnostic information," says Kevin MacDonald, GEOTrac's vice-president of marketing and communications. "That's almost double what we were handling a year ago — and way beyond our early days of simple geomapping applications."

With each new customer, GEOTrac must integrate a new database, which used to pose technical concerns. With the power of multi-core computers available, today when the need arises all it has to do is plug in a new dual-core server and the system is ready to handle an exponentially larger workload almost overnight.

"In our business we can't afford to build a new infrastructure every time we sign a customer," MacDonald says. "With dual-core technology, we're way past what we could have done with single-core."

Arius3D

For imaging specialists Arius3D, more brainpower has turned a bright idea into a viable, marketable product. In 2000, David Breukelman, co-founder and president of Arius3D, licensed a National Research Council colour imaging solution that created 3D copies of real world objects such as artifacts and artwork for museums, archivists and academic researchers. The application itself may have been perfect at the time, but the power to run it was not. "Up until two years ago, processing power simply couldn't allow us to manipulate and merge all the data points we needed to work efficiently," Breukelman explains.

A single digital visualization of a bust of Samuel de Champlain, for example, requires a total of 60 million data points — a job that would tax the limits of any ordinary single-core processor and take days to complete. When he made the leap from Pentium chips to dual-core machines, it doubled his capacity, speed and performance instantly Breukelman says.

"Processing power finally reached a point where a small company like ours could buy enough computing power off the shelf to make the capture and manipulation of data sets easy," says Breukelman. "It transformed the timeliness and elegance of our solution overnight."

Still, even though the wide availability of multi-core processing power is opening up new opportunities for smaller businesses, some feel you can never have too much when it comes to computational capabilities. As far as Breukelman is concerned, despite the gains, technology will always be playing catch-up to the speed of thought.

"Almost invariably, imaging innovation will be well beyond existing processing power," Breukelman says. "I know that the processing power we will require for our next application simply doesn't exist right now. But I have every faith it will."

[an error occurred while processing this directive]