acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Latest Practice



A Conversation with David E. Shaw
From Communications of the ACM

A Conversation with David E. Shaw

Stanford professor Pat Hanrahan sits down with the noted hedge fund founder, computational biochemist, and (above all) computer scientist.

Probing Biomolecular Machines with Graphics Processors
From Communications of the ACM

Probing Biomolecular Machines with Graphics Processors

GPU acceleration and other computer performance increases will offer critical benefits to biomedical science.

Making Sense of Revision-Control Systems
From Communications of the ACM

Making Sense of Revision-Control Systems

All revision-control systems come with complicated sets of trade-offs. How do you find the best match between tool and team?

Monitoring and Control of Large Systems With MonALISA
From Communications of the ACM

Monitoring and Control of Large Systems With MonALISA

MonALISA developers describe how it works, the key design principles behind it, and the biggest technical challenges in building it.

CTO Roundtable
From Communications of the ACM

CTO Roundtable: Cloud Computing

The age of cloud computing has begun. How can companies take advantage of the new opportunities it provides?

Fighting Physics: A Tough Battle
From Communications of the ACM

Fighting Physics: A Tough Battle

The laws of physics and the Internet's routing infrastructure affect performance in a big way.

Whither Sockets?
From Communications of the ACM

Whither Sockets?

The pervasive and long-lasting sockets API has remained largely unchanged since 1982. How have developers worked around its inherent limitations and what is the...

Network Front-End Processors, Yet Again
From Communications of the ACM

Network Front-End Processors, Yet Again

The history of NFE processors sheds light on the trade-offs involved in designing network stack software.

Hard-Disk Drives: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
From Communications of the ACM

Hard-Disk Drives: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

New drive technologies and increased capacities create new categories of failure modes that will influence system designs.

Improving Performance on the Internet
From Communications of the ACM

Improving Performance on the Internet

Given the Internet's bottlenecks, how can we build fast, scalable, content-delivery systems?

The Long Road to 64 Bits
From Communications of the ACM

The Long Road to 64 Bits

The sometimes contentious development of 64-bit systems shows how technology decisions can have unexpected, enduring consequences.

Eventually Consistent
From Communications of the ACM

Eventually Consistent

Building reliable distributed systems at a worldwide scale demands trade-offs between consistency and availability.

High-Performance Web Sites
From Communications of the ACM

High-Performance Web Sites

Want to make your Web site fly? Focus on frontend performance.

CTO Virtualization Roundtable
From Communications of the ACM

CTO Virtualization Roundtable: Part II

When it comes to virtualization platforms, experts say focus first on the services to be delivered.

CTO Roundtable on Virtualization
From Communications of the ACM

CTO Roundtable on Virtualization: Part I

Virtualization technology is hot again, but for the right reasons?

A Closer Look at GPUs
From Communications of the ACM

A Closer Look at GPUs

As the line between GPUs and CPUs begins to blur, it's important to understand what makes GPUs tick.

From Communications of the ACM

Powering Down

Smart power management is all about doing more with the resources we have.

From Communications of the ACM

CTO Storage Roundtable, Part Two

Leaders in the storage industry ponder upcoming technologies and trends.

From Communications of the ACM

The Rise and Fall of CORBA

There's a lot we can learn from CORBA's mistakes.

From Communications of the ACM

CTO Storage Roundtable: Part I

Leaders in the storage world offer valuable advice for making more effective architecture and technology decisions.
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account