Segwist

Somewhere along the way, over the past few years of metageeking, I have attracted what can only be described as a pile of computers. Looking around the studio late in 2008, I did a quick stock take of all the computers and laptops lying around and wondered if there was something I could be doing with it all. Sure the big tower is for audio production and the smaller one is a media center and download box, but what about those laptops? The Asus M6R is the laptop previously used in my electronic band, the Macbook is its likely replacement and my dipping into the world of Mac and OSX, the Acer Aspire One is my travel netbook I took on a fundraising trip in Cambodia and as for the Toshiba Satellite? I’m not sure. What I am sure about, is that this makes for a lot of idle processing power.

For those who, like myself, have wondered if there was a better use for idle computing power, the answer is a resounding yes! Of course you could convert systems into media centres, try out alternative and open source operating systems like Linux or simply pull them apart and make drink coasters and magnets out of them. That might be fun. On the other hand, you might consider, as I did, utilising all that potential processing power for the greater good. Enter the World Community Grid.

The Grid is essentially a venture undertaken by IBM to host, maintain and resource “the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity”. The idea is relatively simple, as most great ideas are. Essentially, there are a lot of computers sitting idle around the world. There are also a lot of really interesting questions that we might be asking that require a lot of processing power to determine the answer. By creating a means for organisations to distribute packets of data to participating computers, and allow otherwise idle processors to contribute their power to these bite size chunks of the greater whole, there is clearly a resource available that would otherwise be too expensive or unrealistic to attempt.

The first instance of this concept that I came across was care of a friend in the late 1990’s, dedicating his old Pentium II 300 system to the SETI@Home project. This box was literally destined for the scap heap, and instead added its relative might to the processing of data obtained from the Arecibo radio telescope. In short, space signals are analyzed to seek out anything not attributable to “noise”. In other words, as SETI stands for itself, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. One of the outcomes sought from the SETI@Home project was the development of the concept of distributed computing technology in the public realm. The other outcome was the search for extra-terrestrial life. While the Vulcans are still hidden from us for the time being, the distributed networking concept is a massive success.

So what else do you need to know about the WDC and distributed networking to get involved? Not much. In the case of WDC, you simply download a small application which handles the scheduling of the data packets and allows you full control of how much system power you allow for the processing. This is handy if you just want to dedicate 10% of your CPU power to the application if you’re leaving a computer on overnight, perhaps while downloading torrents or podcasts. The application handles the chunks of data, which can be considered as a digital assignment, rather than digital homework, in the sense that a packet of data will take a few days to process before the results are transmitted. Given the control over the how your system works with the project, the low footprint on your internet quota and the ability to dip in and out at will, it’s quite simple a fantastic way to explore the possibilities of contributing otherwise idle resources for a great geeky good.

The World Community Grid is far from the only distributed networking community out there, and this Wikipedia entry lists many more. Virtually any computing device will be “useful” as a contributor of processing power, as we reach a point where mobile handheld devices and mobile phones are now reaching the power of the old computers first employed around the time the Seti@Home project began. If you have some downtime on your system, or some computers lying around, then consider adding your processing might to the collective. Borg references aside, this is one simple way for metageeks and casual computing enthusiasts to assimilate a disparate array of technology and to contribute to a positive global outcome with readily available, and otherwise idle, resources.

Tags: Acer, Aspire, Asus, Distributed, IBM, M6R, Macbook, Networking, One, Processing, SETI, Seti@Home, Toshibi Satellite, WCG, World Community Grid

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 9:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.