Patrick,
On Mon, 7 Apr 2008, patrick wrote:
an interesting article about 'the grid,' which
we will likely be using in the future.
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/The_Grid_to_Render_the_Web_Obsolete/551-88299-643.html
I'm not sure, based on the article, how "the grid" differs from our
current internet except that the networking has been placed on steroids.
I think traditional "grid" computing also involves using processor cycles
on voluntarily participating nodes connected to the network, the premise
being that a lot of unused computers out there can be harvested by
constructing a "grid" to take advantage of the unused cycles. That's a
noble concept in government or academically sponsored settings, but to
make it ubiquitous it would have to go commercial and it would evolve into
some sort of subscription-based service the way broadband is today. So,
the question becomes whether "the grid" is the next best step
technologically for solving future high-bandwidth compute-intensive needs,
but I don't think it will necessarily be cheap. And... has anyone thought
about the security implications of "grid" computing?
I just read an article in PCWorld about how ISP's are working on ways to
charge for bandwidth usage. It said that ISP's won't admit it, but
they're worried about running short on bandwidth as bandwidth hungry
technologies explode. Or, more to the point, they don't want to invest a
lot of money into infrastructure but rather reap profits from existing
infrastructure with incremental improvements. So, we will continue to see
network bandwidths improve but we will also probably have to pay higher
prices. That's one of the driving factors behind the LDM upgrade
initiative.
Interesting topic...
Art
Arthur A. Person
Research Assistant, System Administrator
Penn State Department of Meteorology
email: person@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, phone: 814-863-1563
