Clod Computing Challenges The Cloud

Cloud computing is making a name for itself by challenging the cost of running traditional corporate data centers. But just as the cloud is reaching critical mass, a new challenger appears with an even lower cost model. They call it clod computing.

Just what is the “clod” and why is it cheaper? The business model is based on reducing infrastructure cost by getting computing resources for free. As explained by startup vendor Chip-On-A-Shingle, “A clod is simply a cluster of unwanted computers and peripherals all hooked together to create some really awesome processing.”

It’s true that there is a surplus of computers headed for landfills simply because they are no longer the new shiny thing. Most computers go to their graves perfectly functional. They’ve simply gotten too slow due to lack of memory or processing power to keep up with the latest software applications. Some are tossed for simple ugliness as UV exposure turns their once cream colored cases a nasty shade of orange.

“What gave me the idea,” said J. Unkmann, a pioneer in the new technology of OaaP (Obsolescence as a Platform), “was when I saw all these computers sitting out by the curb on trash day. It seemed like every other house had a tower or a monitor. They didn’t even bother putting them in the recycling bins. I got to thinking about all that processing power going to waste and decided to pick up a few and see what I could do with them.”

Unkmann’s breakthrough was in networking dozens, then hundreds, of old computer CPUs and selling the processing capability as a service. As he points out, “Any old 486 may not have much throughput, but when you have hundreds or thousands of cores you’ve got yourself a super-computer. I don’t dare take my array out of the country. The government has laws against exporting this advanced technology.”

Instead, Unkmann and a legion of similar visionaries are offering their services to anyone from caffeinated gamers to corporate IT departments. Unkmann’s below-ground data center has wooden racks filled from floor to ceiling with everything from old IBM PCs to brightly colored iMacs. The primary cost of the operation is electricity. “Heat could also be a problem, he remarked, but we live up North so it’s cold most of the time. Security isn’t much of a issue, either. Mom’s got a mean dog upstairs and the storm cellar door has been rusted shut for years.”

In addition to processor cycles, Chip-On-A-Shingle offers scalable storage as a service. “You can see how extensive our disk array is,” noted Unkmann pointing at a shelf stacked high with hard drives. “Some of these are only 40 GB or so, but people are throwing out computers with 250 GB drives these days. Just call up and tell me how many you want and I’ll plug ‘em in.”

Costs for clod computing are running considerably lower than those quoted by well known cloud service providers. J. Unkmann has flexible financing available that includes anything from PayPal contributions to bartering arrangements. “I’m most interested in PoD (Pizza on Demand),” he commented.

Connectivity arrangement are flexible, too. “We can wire up just about anything you want. Dial-up works just fine if you are on a tight budget. I’ve got maybe a thousand modem cards in a box over there. We can also go wireless. Just send me a time card for my prepaid phone.”

Major carriers and cloud service providers have been loath to embrace clod computing so far. But as the recession drags on, breakthrough ideas such as this may come to fill a very low end niche in the marketplace, until the economy picks up... hopefully by next April 1.

FCC Confiscates Remaining TV Channels For Twitter

Shocked and horrified by the geometrically expanding demand for wireless broadband services, the Federal Commfiscation Commission exercised its powers of eminent domain today and confiscated the remaining broadcast television channels not already sold at auction. Most surprising of all was the declaration that this rare and important spectrum is going to be dedicated exclusively to the text messaging service, Twitter.

FCC Chairman Lowon B. Andwidth explained that the Commission just completed an intensive study of Internet usage and found that the Twitter service is growing at such an astonishing rate that it will soon devour all available bandwidth. “While it is bad enough that Twitter will bring web browsing, video streaming, text messaging and email to a halt,” said Mr. Andwidth, “a far worse situation will occur when Twitter users have to take a number and get in line to post their tweets. I don’t want to be in Washington when that mob of anti-social networkers descends on Capitol Hill.”

In shortest supply is wireless bandwidth. Apparently, the lion’s share of cellular phone activity involves posting messages to Twitter rather than the growth previously expected from mobile video and web browsing. One young smartphone user was heard to exclaim, “Does anyone actually surf the Web anymore? Who has the patience to read blogs and web pages? Anything worth saying can be said in 140 characters or less.”

Twitter itself issued a 130 character statement expressing delight at the government’s pre-emptive action to prevent a massive Fail Whale epidemic from sweeping the nation, and requesting re-tweets. They vowed to expand server capacity to match the new wireless bandwidth capacity as best they can. TV stations that follow Twitter have already been tweeted to cease broadcasting immediately and return their licenses. The remaining stations will be getting old school telegrams. “It’s unlikely anyone will be inconvenienced by this change,” explained Chairman Andwidth. “Everybody is on cable and satellite by now, anyway.”

Expectations are that a swift coordinated move by the public and private sectors can ensure adequate messaging capacity at least until after the fall elections. After that, the FCC will likely look at shutting down other less important uses of the electromagnetic spectrum including most AM and FM music stations. “We may even have to shut down microwave ovens and garage door openers if we can’t keep up with texting bandwidth demand,” exclaimed an obviously frustrated chairman.

Also making quick moves to protect its interests, Google announced that it is going to take over non-wireless Internet service by offering 1 Gbps fiber optic connections to every city that performed ridiculous stunts to try to win Google broadband service for its residents. “All other cities that didn’t make fools of themselves will be getting 10 Gbps Google Internet access free of charge,” according to an unofficial Google statement. It went on to say: “There is only one acceptable day for any foolishness and that is April 1.”

Economic Woes Drive Rural Telegraphy Initiative

The ongoing deterioration in economic activity has caused a complete rethinking about how to bring digital communications to rural areas. It's no secret that Internet access and even cell phone service is hard to come by out in the boonies. That's what the rural broadband initiative in the economic stimulus plan was designed to correct. But in a cruel twist of fate, it's been discovered that the monies intended for trenching fiber optic cable down country lanes has instead been appropriated by city hedge fund managers.

As one of the fund managers, Robb M. Blihnd, explained: "The need for hedges to separate adjoining properties in densely packed urban and suburban landscapes is critical to public safety. People are getting testy and going after their neighbors over little things like barking dogs, smoke from barbecue cookouts and children straying into adjacent properties. We need the money for planting hedges to clearly identify property boundaries and provide a natural barrier against intrusions. The demand for hedge fund financing is clearly more critical in metro areas than out in the country where the population is more dispersed. That and our executive bonuses, of course."

The dearth of funding has sparked renewed interest in an alternative technology well suited to rural communications. With minimal construction costs and low bandwidth requirements, telegraphy may the answer to doing "something" for the long ignored rural constituency without Congress having to come up with additional funding. Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph was America's first telecommunication technology and designed to work in the frontier environment of the 19th century. Sometimes referred to as the "The Victorian Internet", there are eerie parallels to today's messaging technology. Users known as "telegraphers" networked across the country to exchange messages at will. Simple battery power energized both transmission and reception, much the way cell phones use batteries today.

Jon Dehre is owner of the first TSP or Telegraph Service Provider to apply for federal funding under the massively scaled down Rural Telegraphy Initiative. According to Jon: "Wiring for a telegraph system is easy out in the country. Most farms have barbed wire fencing that works great as a conductor to carry the signal for miles. Of course, you have to watch out for those electrified fences. We zapped a few operators before we learned to test for high voltage by throwing a wet tarp on the wires. We go through tarps pretty fast, but there seems to be plenty of tarp financing available."

The resuscitated telegraph technology should have a special appeal to younger users who are addicted to texting. Only a single finger is needed to tap out the dots and dashes of the Morse Code using a standard telegraph key. Power users can upgrade to a semi-automatic keyer, also known as a "bug." These require the use of two fingers, but leave one hand completely free to act as an unpowered "green" printer for writing down incoming messages.

Telegraphy solutions may also be appropriate for some businesses with little technology need and even lower expectations. For those that require a true broadband solution, it should be noted that T1 lines are available at reasonable rates through Sheep For T1, a website designed to support businesses located beyond metropolitan areas. In addition, satellite broadband is available for residential users in nearly all USA locations. No fooling.

I, Router

One unexpected blessing from the advance of technology is the development of fabrics that can generate electric power using only the normal motion of the wearer. It does this using nanowires coated with zinc oxide that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. There's no weird perpetual motion invention here. This is basic high school science that says energy is neither created or destroyed, but can be converted from one form to another with a little effort.

The inventor of this fantastic new product suggests using the technology to make shirts and shoes to power iPods or medical implants. The power density is 80 milliwatts per square meter of fabric. But that's just today. Who knows what future developments will be able to squeeze out of the shirt on your back. A Watt per T-Shirt? Several Watts per lumberjack shirt? This just assumes normal movements. If you happen to have a nervous tic, you could be a walkin' jerkin' generatin' station.

The idea of recharging an iPod while dancing down the street is a good one. Who knows how many tons of CO2 can be spared from the ever-warming atmosphere by lightening the load on those putrid coal fired power plants. But why not go a step further and save our dwindling oil supplies by recharging your hybrid car as you sit at stop lights, jumping to the beat of the latest dance music. In fact, why not just plug yourself in at home and give back to the grid? After all, it's given to us all these years.

Energy independence and environmental protection are excellent applications for the future "power" dresser. But all this electricity on the hoof may help solve a myriad of other societal problems, too. I'm thinking big. I'm thinking universal broadband.

Even at the current state of nanotechnology, we can conceptualize the wearable integrated circuit. Anyone who's enjoyed the soothing warmth of an electric blanket knows that they've been weaving wires into cloth for decades. Now it's time to add a little circuitry. The circuit designs for 802.11a, b, g, and n WiFi transceivers are certainly mature at this point. In fact, they have been miniaturized to fit into cell phones and PDAs. So, too, have mesh networks been perfected. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer includes this capability so that children in undeveloped countries can interconnect their laptops to create a huge wireless network. Only one computer needs to be close to a wireless access point. The others route their packets from computer to computer to share that connection.

The big problem with deploying large scale mesh networks that could provide wide area wireless broadband coverage is the darn power supplies. You either need to mount these on light poles and divert power from the streetlights like municipal WiFi networks do. Or, depend on batteries that are constantly looking for a recharge. The OLPC approach also offers the option of turning a crank to keep the computer running. But how long can you keep every kid doing that before their arms fall off? It would be a great physical fitness program in the United States, except that the chubbiest kids are always the ones who are rich enough to afford MacBook Pros and won't lift a finger beyond opening the lid anyway.

Now, marry the technology of miniaturized wireless transmitters and receivers with power generating fabric and you have as many mobile WiFi nodes as you can get people to wear clothes. Dress 'em up. Send 'em out and the network comes to life. In cities and towns everywhere, available bandwidth comes on line as the day begins. It's densest during the work and school day when the demand for capacity is highest. As night falls and people change into their casual and party clothes, new nodes come on line. Dance clubs and sports arenas may generate enough excess bandwidth to allow couch potatoes the luxury of downloading HD videos as they relax, powerlessly.

With these mesh networks, no man is an island but everyone is a power station, a two-way radio and a router. Being called a "dynamo" has always been a compliment. Now it can really ring true. Referring to someone as "hot" may simply mean that they are active in the network.

Further integration of power, circuitry and fabric could lead to additional technology applications. It's long been a dream of VoIP advocates to bypass the public telephone network and make all their calls for free over the Internet. Why not include network voice features within electronic clothing? Your next coat could be much more than a soft jacket. It could be a softswitch.

And then there is the issue of sparsely populated areas where broadband communications options are needed the most. This is where our friends in the animal kingdom could lend a hoof or paw. Just look at the surface area on a cow's back and you can see the potential for high power transmissions. Polar Bears would be perfect to deploy "white space" transmitters above the Arctic Circle, if Google can get the FCC behind the idea. Other bears could help bring broadband access to the National Parks. Then again, how difficult will it be to get bears to wear jackets? The whole process seems... grizzly at best.