Priority Interrupt by Steve Ciarcia As Long as the Light Goes On

Ever sit and muse about the future of computing? I can’t speak for you, but as someone involved at the beginning of this revolution I’ve still never been very good at predicting the future. I’m sure it’s the myopic nature of being hardware guys that makes us temper every design idea with the practicality of whether or not the hardware exists to actually build it. Software guys have the advantage of living in a fantasy world where the ideas reign and where concerns about computing power are satisfied by the guiding rule of, “It will come.”

The revolution we’ve experienced so far has increased communication and computing performance primarily at the individual level. The processor on your desk today is 100 times more powerful than the one you had a few years ago. And, aside from the constant struggle of, “what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away,” we are constantly increasing our individual productivity.

Until now our ability to exercise computing activities like video editing, photo manipulation, stock analysis, etc. has been bounded by the limits of our own PCs. In order to do bigger and better things, we have to constantly invest in bigger and better machines. This fact isn’t lost on Dell, HP, and other PC manufacturers as they promote a never-ending upgrade market.

As you know, the greatest factor driving individual computer usage today is the Internet. However, the primary purpose of the Internet is directing message traffic from one place to another. It is not organized nor does it teach you how to share computing power or share technical assets like a CAT scanner or particle accelerator connected to it.

Unfortunately, the software guys have been thinking outside the box again and attempting to alter conventional wisdom. The latest concept is called the “grid.” In it’s simplest abstraction you can think of the grid like the power generation system used in our country. Many independent utilities push or pull power in and out of this massive interconnected system. They might have incompatible generating techniques (wind, coal, gas, geothermal, etc.), but they speak a common language in the shared benefit of –60-Hz AC power.

The idea of the grid has been around for a while, but used mostly by academics looking for less costly ways to analyze data than with a supercomputer. A simple version of this idea is to spread out a task among hundreds of computers across the Internet and poll each for results later. While this is probably better thought of as distributed processing, it still leads us closer to the grid.

The first users of real grid computing have been the large corporations that need lots of computing power, most notably the car companies. Statistics show that the average business server runs at only 30% of capacity and the 2-gig P4 on your desk is barely pushing 5%. The logical solution is to divert all of the excess power of idle computers toward running complex applications, formerly the exclusive dominion of supercomputers. As you might expect, the next thought on the minds of people producing grid-system software is to link companies, consumers, governments, and institutions. Together, all of this becomes one big grid engine. The concept is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. It’s the operation of it that scares me. Today we have this wonderful communication system called the Internet and what do we spend half our life doing? Getting rid of spam and protecting ourselves from hackers and viruses. While the predictions are rosy, if history is the example, I doubt my 95% surplus will be utilized for anything I’ll be happy about. And, although computer makers say that future processors will allow us to retain individual privacy, these are the same people who have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar a few times about secret tags, embedded serial numbers, and undisclosed tracks.

Our present computing strategy is built around using firewalls and strategic interception to keep unwelcome people out. For the grid to be truly beneficial, every computer has to be in virtual contact with everyone else. This is achievable within a company computing system where they maintain a perfect environment of hardware commonality and network access, but it’s a tough integration in the chaotic computing world outside.

My predictions of the power and the predicament of the grid will undoubtedly pale by comparison to what really happens. A lot of grid power will be consumed, keeping the grid itself secure, but processing power will continue to expand as well. What we call supercomputers today may in fact be run-of-the-mill PCs tomorrow. If I had to prognosticate, I’d say that because of its sheer ubiquity, ultimately the grid will pervade our lives almost like another intelligence. But, as most things universal, we’ll also end up taking it for granted. Like flipping a light switch today, we’re not going to care how it works, but rather just that the light goes on.

steve.ciarcia@circuitcellar.com

Published: November-2002