<font color="#052c65" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.connect-world.com/index2.htm">http://www.connect-world.com/index2.htm</a><br></span>Fredric
Morris</b><br>
Editor-In-Chief<br>
Connect-World</font>
<p><font size="5">A</font><em> look at the future of computing, extreme computing, cloud computing, secure computing, cosmic and not so cosmic energy levels </em><br>
<br>
Free association is not so free - it follows well-worn mental groves. I
started sliding along some of those grooves after reading the latest
edition of <em>Scientific American</em>. I've been reading <em>SciAm</em> so long that the monthly feature, '<em>50, 100 & 150 Years Ago in Scientific American',</em> which traditionally opens the magazine, is just a bit of personal reminiscence.
<br>
<br>
The latest issue, August 2007, had an article called, "<em>Data Center in a Box"</em>.
Although, this is not exactly a new idea, this is the first time that
so much computing power was packed into a container and the first time
it was designed to be mass-producible. Earlier versions were one-off,
much lower power, special purpose deals. I had heard recently that Sun
Microsystems had done something of this sort, but I never looked into
it; I never realized just how awesome and significant it might be. <br>
<br>
The data centre, the result of Sun Microsystems' <em>Project</em> <em>Black Box</em>,
is a study in extreme computing. Indeed, the whole centre is crammed
into a standard 8x8x20 foot (a bit less than 35 cubic meters) shipping
container. <br>
<br>
Okay, they stuffed a lot of computers into a box - what's noteworthy
about that? To start with, the boxes have more computing power than
most traditional corporate - big corporate - processing centres. Anyone
who has followed corporate computing trends in recent years can tell
you that managing the energy consumption and heat output of their
centres so they can expand is one major concern that CIOs regularly
moan about. <br>
<br>
A rack of servers uses about 25 kilowatts of electricity. Most of that
energy turns into heat - enough heat to turn a rack into a molten
puddle. Squeeze racks, the Black Box has eight, into a small box and
the problems increase exponentially as the box gets smaller. It all
reminds me - okay, I'm a physicist and this is <em>my</em>
free association - of the enormous heat and energy concentrated when a
star implodes into a black hole. This black hole, though, comes with a
very sophisticated system to vent and channel the hot air generated
into heat exchangers cooled by water - a tremendous bit of engineering,
a marvellous technological feat.<br>
<br>
The self-contained system is <em>complete</em>; it needs only
electricity, a data line and water to work. Of course, you can't plug
it into a wall outlet; it needs a direct connection to the power grid -
a 600-amp industrial-grade power feed. Your telco's DSL also falls a
bit short of what this 250-server box needs to gulp down fresh data and
spew out results; it needs a big, fat broadband pipe - a dedicated
fibre connection is recommended. The box also needs 60 gallons of
chilled water each minute to keep it from melting down. Other than
that, the box is ready to go with seven terabytes of memory and two
petabytes of storage, enough they say to support ten thousand desktop
users. <br>
<br>
According to the article, the data centre can be up and running for
one-hundredth the cost, and a tiny fraction of the time, of a
traditional centre of similar power. Each centre, by itself, has enough
computing muscle to rank among the world's top 200 super-computers.
Need more computing power? Just drop in another box. It would help if
you are located next to a major telco, a good-sized power generation
facility and a sizeable waterfall, but if you can supply the power,
communications and water, even a rooftop, a ship, an offshore platform,
a basement or parking lot will do. <br>
<br>
Why are these centres, the Black Boxes, so significant? Well, according
to the article, the boxes are an ideal, truly cost-effective, way to
quickly expand the Internet's computing capacity and drive us into the
next phase of the information revolution, 'cloud computing' - also
called utility computing, where users rely on software and storage from
the Web that they access anywhere - including from their personal,
hand-held, carry everywhere, devices. If that sounds familiar, then you
have been reading some of my recent eLetters. <br>
<br>
The black boxes, then, may be the critical - quite providential - piece
of the infrastructure that was missing in the plans to make mobile,
personal computing the driving force in the next phase of the
information revolution. Practical, mobile, personal computing may just
be the glue to put together a truly worldwide information society.<br>
<br>
Black also reminds me of the recent <em>Black Hat</em> hacker's
conference. I've never been to one, but they are increasingly
significant, increasingly crowded events. Some four thousand people
were there this year. <br>
<br>
Hackers, for those who still don't know it, are not the bad guys -
those are crackers. Serious hackers perform an extremely important
public service. Hackers poke and prod software to find the
vulnerabilities to correct them before the crackers (the black hearted
bad guys) exploit them - and you. <br><br>
The keynote speaker at Black Hat was Richard Clarke, a 30-year veteran of the US Government and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton">Bill Clinton</a>'s chief counter-terrorism adviser on the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Security_Council" title="United States National Security Council">U.S. National Security Council</a>.
Since his retirement, Clarke has been writing books. Clarke was quoted
as saying at Black Hat that, "we're building more and more of our
economy on cyberspace 1.0, yet we have secured very little of
cyberspace 1.0." He went on to talk about the software that splits
processing between the Web site's server and the client - the user's
browser, and how this has re- opened Web 2.0 to some standard,
long-used, attacks. Wireless broadband access, is one of the areas
where this lack of security is most evident. This is a real danger
facing the expansion, the expected expl osion, of mobile personal
computing. <br>
<br>
Errata Security's CEO, Robert Graham, demonstrated this danger during
his presentation at Black Hat. According to the reports, he used a
software tool called <em>Hamster and Ferret</em>
to examine the airwaves for Web 2.0 sites. Graham quietly used the
software, while speaking of other matters, to 'sniff' the wireless
packets transmitted and received by those in the audience. He 'grabbed'
their Web 2.0 clear text session cookies, and pasted the captured URLs
into his browser. According to the report, the cookie eliminates the
need for a password. As a vivid demonstration of the dangers, Graham
opened his Hamster tool at the end of his talk and very rapidly
displayed and cleared - on the conference room's screen - a Gmail
account that someone in the audience had accessed during his talk. <br>
<br>
A great demonstration, a scary demonstration, of one of the security
problems facing the growth of wireless, cloud computing, mobile
personal computing, Web 2.0 communities and all the other services and
applications the information society depends upon. <br>
<br>
The security problem won't go away, but with better defensive software,
prudent habits, encryption and the like, the risks can be managed. All
we need is a bit of traveling music to get the mobile computing show on
the road. How about something from the Black Eyed Peas or Black
Sabbath? Maybe the old standard, <em>That Old Black Magic</em>, should be the theme song.
</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Anne-Rachel Inne