# Computation A computation defines a task for a {doc}`computation program `. It contains the input data and metadata used for searching, monitoring, and distributing tasks to available servers. A computation also includes the license required by the selected program, so the appropriate license should be selected. For example, if you work at a university and want to run Orca, you can choose an Academic License. The computation can then be assigned to a server that has a valid Orca academic license available. It is better to avoid specifying CPU and RAM limits manually in input text. A computation may be assigned to servers with different hardware capabilities. In some cases, the computation would not be able to use all available resources efficiently, while in others it might fail to start because the required resources are not available.