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One Computer to Rule Them All
An anonymous reader writes "IBM has published a research paper describing an initiative called Project Kittyhawk, aimed at building "a global-scale shared computer capable of hosting the entire Internet as an application." Nicholas Carr describes the paper with the words "Forget Thomas Watson's apocryphal remark that the world may need only five computers. Maybe it needs just one." Here is the original paper."
Having a worldwide master computer really worked for the Bynars. I'm sure it'll work here on Earth too.
In real life there may be a case to be made for IBM's solution. But making that case has more to do with actually convincing large customers that IBM is substantially cheaper (and runs the software people need). Since that doesn't seem to be happening on a massive scale, I tend to doubt IBM's hype.
... Well, I don't have the creativity to write something this nice, and certainly I don't have the right to spoil it. Check out one of the most enjoyable short stories written by Aasimov
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...TFA gives it as http://weather.ou.edu/~apw/projects/kittyhawk/kittyhawk.pdf
-- Free speech is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Kind of. It is registered in the tax roles, it just can't be accounted for once it is dispersed: "The Department of Defense... once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions..." according to a Government Accountability office "A study by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Pentagon couldn't properly account for more than a trillion dollars in monies spent." -sfgate
Maybe they are building that giant-mega-super-computer after all, or maybe they are funding covert wars and skimming your money for $640 toilet seats and retirement funds. Either way, they are outright taking money from me with no accountability which makes me even more pissed than if it were secret!
Get a web developer
"Answer" by Fredric Brown, I would assume...
http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm
I doubt that they are planing replacing the Internet with one machine but a Blue Gene might replace Google's cluster.
Not at anywhere near the cost.
C//
Nah, I think it's more along the lines of what Harlan Ellison was talking about...
"Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness. It is correspondingly argued that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really good basket. See also KISS Principle, elegant.
I'd say that IBM knows how to build a pretty reliable basket..
http://catb.org/jargon/html/A/airplane-rule.html
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
You're funny.
Have you worked as one of the people managing the people managing the mainframes? IBM support goes down all the time. Although complete loss of data is highly unlikely because there is so much back up etc. involved, customers routinely complain about not being able to access this or that because this part of the network is down, etc. IBM employees get calls for a Severity 1 outage routinely, and it's becoming increasingly problematic as IBM continues to implement resource actions.
To say that IBMs services are up 100% of the time is misleading. I wouldn't want them "hosting" the internet.
Also, I think the point being made was that we don't want one group in charge of it, rather than not wanting one bit of machinery involved. By restricting control and maintenance of something this global under one specific hierarchy, we effectively eliminate any system of checks and balances.