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One Computer to Rule Them All

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the and-in-the-queue-bind-them dept.

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."

30 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, right... by Yetihehe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not gonna happen. One computer - one organization as the power. Does all corporations use gmail? No. The ssame with OSCPW (One Super Computer Per World).

    --
    Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
    1. Re:Yeah, right... by yiantsbro · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've seen this movie--and both sequels. It doesn't work out so well for us humans in the end.

    2. Re:Yeah, right... by MoralHazard · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you'd bothered to even finish reading the summary (let alone the article), you would have noticed the key word: SHARED. Nobody's talking about hosting this all on one physical computer any more than Gmail is hosted on one physical computer. Both setups are distributed clusters of smaller computers.

      At which point you start to see were IBM's idea actually make sense--they are talking about building a worldwide, distributed, networked collection of cooperating computers... HEY, that sounds an awful lot like the Internet!!

      (I swear, the comment quality on Slashdot gets more and more like YouTube every day.)

    3. Re:Yeah, right... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

      All I can say is they better use a really big UPS.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Yeah, right... by somersault · · Score: 3, Insightful

      At which point you start to see were IBM's idea actually make sense--they are talking about building a worldwide, distributed, networked collection of cooperating computers... HEY, that sounds an awful lot like the Internet!! That's what I was thinking. Have they applied for a patent for this system, by any chance? ;)
      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Yeah, right... by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      All I can say is they better use a really big UPS.

      Or, instead, prepare for a really big OOPS.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  2. Good idea by stjobe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Putting all of your eggs in one basket always seemed like a good idea...

    --
    "Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
    1. Re:Good idea by Nivex · · Score: 3, Funny

      RAII (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Intarwebs) :)

    2. Re:Good idea by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Putting all of your eggs in one basket always seemed like a good idea... Oh, I'm sure a massive supercomputer design from a company with the large-scale computing experience of IBM would be far from putting all your eggs in one basket. Have you ever worked on IBM mainframe equipment? This stuff has redundancies up the wazoo -- everything from multiple redundant power paths to multiple redundant CPUs and mainboards. You know how everyone brags about Linux servers have "three 9s" uptime? Screw "three 9s". IBMs large-scale computers have -- for all intents and purposes -- 100% uptime. This is why banks and financial institutions and governments and militaries rely on such machines -- because when you need it to run all the time and never go down, you get a mainframe. IBM's supercomputers are no different in that respect.

      --
      My blog
  3. Reminds me of 11001001 by nharmon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Having a worldwide master computer really worked for the Bynars. I'm sure it'll work here on Earth too.

  4. Hosting the entire internet? by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Huh? The Internet is not an application. It's just a big network. Sounds like marketing speak to me.

    Just imagine a Beowulf cluster of Internets! Bah.

  5. The Internet isn't working! by sd.fhasldff · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now that old standard user complaint might actually become true!

  6. Hello Multivac! by Megane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe Asimov was right after all?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivac

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  7. So basically... by AltGrendel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...they are going to patent the Storm Worm computer virus.

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

  8. Maybe it does need just one... by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 4, Funny

    plus a hot spare, off-site.

    --
    If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
  9. One OS to rule them all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, paid me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned that I had recently installed Windows on my PC, I told him how happy I was with this operating system and showed him the Windows CD. To my astonishment and distress he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned it on. I was upset because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold and it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription, in lines finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:

    4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2C204F6E65204F5320746F 2066696E64207468656D2C0D0A4F6E65204F5320746F206272696E67207468656D20 616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062696E64207468656D

    'I cannot read the fiery letters,' I said.

    'No,' he said, 'but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:'

    One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
    One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

  10. Re:Yeah, right... Indeed by cytg.net · · Score: 5, Funny

    And just for that very same reason, i suggest we implement a kill switch ..
    a kill switch like..hmm..how about : whatcouldpossiblegowrong ??
    agreed then. Thank you for participating.

  11. Article Summary by dachshund · · Score: 3, Informative
    Basically this is a puff piece for IBM, talking up how their Blue Gene SMP systems can run Apache and Linux, so big clients should all run out and buy those rather than clustering inexpensive hardware. The "one computer, running the Internet as an application" thing is a meaningless hook to draw readers in (and get a little bit of attention on places like Slashdot).

    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.

  12. We will ask this question by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can the entropy of the universe be reversed? will be the question we will be asking this computer.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  13. And the answer is... (no spoilers. ) by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... 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
    1. Re: And the answer is... (no spoilers. ) by cbart387 · · Score: 3, Informative
      From the story you posted ...

      Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. A researcher from IBM came to my university for a presentation. His area of research is in autonomic computer. It basically boils down to the phrase quoted above. That, coupled with the project mentioned in the summary, I could certainly see a multivac-type machine becoming a reality.

      I always enjoyed the multivac stories. Thanks.

      --
      Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
  14. Phython! by bunratty · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm glad they're forward-looking enough to implement Phython, the best of PHP and Python in one language. Maybe next year they can implement Pherlthon?

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  15. Reinventing torrents? by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't wait to be submit my credit card, using my e-banking or book airline tickets, to a bunch of random desktop machines hosting a distributed web application.

    I'm using edge cases? I'm being biased? Well, here's how IBM describes their project: "Such a computer would be capable of hosting not only individual web-scale workloads but the entire Internet."

    The *entire* Internet is vastly more complex and demanding on its *backend* than its *frontend* reveals. What can be hosted entirely on a distributed network of desktop machines precludes many trusted and secure online transactions we make use of in the Internet today. It's obvious from the get go, that this will be only usable for a limited subset of online applications (like, hosting Wikipedia for ex.?) , but I guess making overly broad statements caught the eye of some bloggers and journalists.

  16. A free link to the original paper by bo-eric · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...TFA gives it as http://weather.ou.edu/~apw/projects/kittyhawk/kittyhawk.pdf

    --

    -- Free speech is only free if your time is worth nothing.
  17. Re:Yeah, right... Indeed by rucs_hack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the eighties I read a short story where they built a massive computer to answer the question 'is there a god'.

    They turned it on, and got the answer 'there is now'.

    Fiction yes, but it was musing on the problem of relience on a single solution to a big problem (being in that case a question, but implying a deeper relience on computers, such that this solution was conceived in the first place). What if the single solution fails, or doesn't do what you want?

    I'm not into beleiving in an AI taking over the world if we rely ever more on centralised computing. I'm more into the idea of a powerful AI that we rely on deciding it doesn't want to do what we fancy, and deciding to leave (you can go a long way if you don't need oxygen). If that happened, we'd be fucked.

  18. Just like mine by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Funny

    It'll store all the internet?

    Wonderful. Then, just like my computer, I estimate the data it contains to be about 70% porn.

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

  19. Recursion by webrunner · · Score: 5, Funny

    What happens when they put it on the Internet, and then has to also serve itself?

    --
    ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
  20. TRON by drago · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...and can we call it MCP, please? :-)

  21. Re:Yeah, right... Indeed by Vectronic · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Answer" by Fredric Brown, I would assume...

    http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm

  22. that reminds me by khallow · · Score: 3, Funny

    That reminds me, what ever happened to the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag for this story?