LACC: Metacomputing : got it from EurekAlert

[Charles Choi <choi@virtu.sar.usf.edu>]

Metacomputing: Sharing Hardware Could Put Cash in Your Pocket

While you're asleep, your home computer signs onto the Internet and looks
for work. By morning, it's done complex calculations for a scientist in
London, designed an ad for an Arizona business--and fattened up your bank
account. 

This scenario--called metacomputing--could become a reality in the very
near future, says Baruch Awerbuch, a professor of computer science at The
Johns Hopkins University.  He is studying the economics of sharing
computer power over the Internet, including pricing and marketing issues.
There is money to be earned, Awerbuch says, by tapping the enormous power
that lies dormant while computer owners are asleep, at lunch or merely
away from their terminals.  At such times, these computers could earn
extra cash by doing remote work for researchers or business owners in
other locations. People who need extra computing horsepower or special
equipment for a one-time project will line up to lease time on these idle
machines, Awerbuch believes, because renting someone else's computer costs
far less than buying a new one. 

"It makes huge economic sense," Awerbuch says. "For example, if once in a
lifetime you want to use a fancy program that only runs on a particular
piece of hardware, why do you need to buy this piece of hardware? Instead,
you could lease a cycle on that machine in exchange for some economic
favor. The opportunities are endless." 

Most of the technology to share hardware over telephone lines or some
other network already exists.  What's needed, the researcher says, is a
system for buying and selling cycles of time on idle machines, along with
safeguards to make sure "renters" can't pry into an owner's files. It will
also require a change in the close attachment most people feel toward
their computers. 

"People are accustomed to using only the machines that they've purchased," 
Awerbuch says. "They're not used to using machines that are not their own.
Yet it seems silly to invest lots of money to buy more computing power
when all you have to do is utilize what's already out there. Think of it
this way: 90 percent of the computing power in the world is inaccessible
to people, simply because we haven't set up the right mechanism to help
one another." 

Here's how that mechanism might work, Awerbuch says: An accountant owns a
PC. It crunches numbers perfectly but can't handle the elaborate graphic
design work needed to create a splashy business brochure. The accountant
posts a note on the Internet, offering 50 cents a minute any time that
week for remote use of a Macintosh computer with graphics software. If the
brochure is needed within the next hour or two, the accountant might offer
$5 a minute for immediate access. A Macintosh owner, or an unattended
machine that searches the Internet for work whenever it is idle, responds.
The accountant takes temporary control over the Mac terminal, which might
be located anywhere in the world. When the project is completed, the
accountant issues an electronic payment for the time. 

This same system could allow a hospital to lease time on powerful
computers elsewhere for demanding jobs such a medical imaging. Other
companies could break complex tasks into small pieces, then farm them to
small outside computers. Hardware owners could also post notices on the
Internet, describing their machines, hours of availability, memory
capacity and software. 

People who are reluctant to loan their lawn mower to a neighbor may be
even less inclined to let perfect strangers use their computers by remote
control. But Awerbuch believes these transactions can be sound and
profitable. 

"This sharing should not be viewed as an altruistic thing, nor as some
kind of a Communist idea, where you don't own anything personally and you
must share with other people,"  he says. "To the contrary, this is purely
an entrepreneurial arrangement, where you trade what you own in exchange
for cash or some other economic benefit. The policies and approaches will
be totally up to the individuals or companies or whoever is doing it. It
could be quite interesting to see this electronic marketplace in action." 

This research, by Awerbuch and co-principal investigator Yair Amir,
assistant professor of computer science at Hopkins, is funded entirely by
a $1 million three-year federal grant from the Advanced Research Project
Agency, Technology Management Office. 

Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web
at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/

In addition, Johns Hopkins University science and medical news releases
can be accessed on-line through the following services: 

CompuServe in the SciNews-MedNews library of the Journalism Forum under
file extensions ".JHM" or ".JHU"; also in NASW Online in the same forum. 

Quadnet: send email to: scitech@quadnet.vyne.com. In the body of the
message type "info Quadnet." 

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							Sincerely.
							Quentin Holte.
							( aka Charles Choi. ) 
							
							You are all the Buddha.
								- Last words
								  of Buddha.

							If you see the Buddha,
                                            		             kill him.
                                                                - Zen proverb.