Distributed Computing For Businesses?

Meostro asks: "I've run several distributed computing clients in the past, and it felt nice to contribute to these projects that are saving the world. I recently became the admin of my company's branch datacenter, so my access to computing power has gone from 4 assorted boxes up to 20 servers and around 400 desktops. My ambition has grown by equal bounds, so I want to do some distributed processing on at least a few of these. We do food warehousing and distribution, so there's no protein folding, DSP or weather modelling work that would significantly contribute to our business. I've done some simple work with optimizing routes for our trucks, but our business doesn't seem to present many other problems that require lots of processing. What are some good business-specific tasks you have used distributed or grid computing to work through?"

Comments

Date modeling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the possibilities. . .

Business specific task

[bherman]

What are some good business-specific tasks you have used distributed or grid computing to work through?
I put our servers to work to find out what the most optimized route would be for me to take to sneak out of work early.

The only problem was there seemed to be some "quirk" in the software that kept suggesting to walk by the bosses door.

Once I get that fixed, I'll be on easy street.