A computon is a combined unit of computing power, including processor cycles, memory, disk storage and bandwidth. The term was popularized by researchers at Hewlett Packard, with the word being a cross between "computation" and "photon", the name for a packet of electromagnetic energy. HP hopes that the computon will become the computing industry's equivalent to public utility's watt-hour.

[edit] References

• Who wants to buy a computon?, The Economist, 12 March 2005 Grid computing: Electricity is sold by the kilowatt-hour. Now a researcher has proposed that computing power should be sold by the computon
• HP takes new pricing path for utility-based computing It plans to measure on-demand IT services with a 'computon' metric, Thomas Hoffman, May 26, 2003, Computerworld

[edit] See also

• Computron
• Grid computing
• Distributed computing

[edit] External links

• Sun Power Units