Message passing in computer clusters

Imagine you have a big toy box with many toys and you want to play a game with your friends who live in different houses, but you can't move the toy box to their houses. So, you will have to think of a way to pass messages to them about which toys to use in the game.

Similarly, in computer clusters, there are many computers, like many toy boxes with different toys, that are connected to each other through a network. These computers work together to solve complex problems or perform large tasks, like playing big games. However, they cannot move their data or programming code from one computer to another physically, like you can't move your toy box to your friend's house. So, they use a special technique called "message passing" to communicate with each other.

Message passing is like passing notes or messages between friends. Instead of toys, computers pass data, commands, and programs from one to another through a network. When a computer wants to send data to another computer, it puts the data into a special message called a "packet" and sends it through the network. The receiving computer then reads the packet and processes the data.

The computers in a cluster use message passing to work together as a team. They distribute the workload among themselves by sending messages to each other that explain what task each computer should perform. For example, one computer in the cluster might receive a message that tells it to perform a certain calculation, while another computer receives a message to crunch numbers for a different calculation. They each work on their task and then pass the results back to the other computers through messages.

So, message passing is like passing notes or messages between friends, except computers in clusters use it to communicate with each other and work together on complex problems.