Asymmetrical
Asymmetrical may refer to any of the following:
1. In general, the word asymmetrical means that something has two sides that are not mirror images of each other. With broadband Internet, the two "sides" are the download and upload speeds.
Most connections are said to be asymmetrical because they have different download and upload speeds. For example, a cable modem has a faster download speed than its upload speed. However, a fiber connection is symmetrical as its download and upload speeds are the same.
2. In computing, asymmetric multi-processing refers to using multiple processors in a way that does not treat all processors equally. Asymmetric processing was an approach used in some early multi-processor systems because it was an affordable way to increase computing power. In contrast, modern multi-processor systems use SMP (symmetric multiprocessing), where all processors can access all the same resources, with none of them treated differently.
In asymmetric multi-processing, processors take care of entirely different tasks. For instance, one CPU (central processing unit) might work operating system tasks while another might handle programs run by the user. These processors might share access to the same memory, but fulfill entirely separate computing purposes.