[Infowarrior] - Grid of 100, 000 computers heralds new internet dawn

[Richard Forno]

(Skynet, anyone? -rf)

September 29, 2008
Grid of 100,000 computers heralds new internet dawn


http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4842964.ece

A network of supercomputers called the Grid will allow information to  
be downloaded quicker than ever. Tasks that took hours will now take  
seconds

Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter

A network of 100,000 computers providing the greatest data processing  
capacity yet unleashed has been created to cope with information  
pouring from the world’s largest machine.

The Grid is the latest evolution of the internet and the world wide  
web and computer scientists will announce on Friday that it is ready  
to be connected to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

It is designed for schemes where huge quantities of data need  
crunching, such as large research and engineering projects. The Grid  
has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the  
ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price  
as a local call. More importantly, it should help to narrow the search  
for cures for diseases. However, it is unlikely to be directly  
available to most internet users until telecoms providers build the  
fibre-optic network required to use it.

The Grid allows scientists at CERN, the European Organisation for  
Nuclear Research, to get access to the unemployed processing power of  
thousands of computers in 33 countries to deal with the data created  
by the LHC.
Vint Cerf: 'web is running out of addresses'

Time is running out for a smooth transition to a new system of  
addresses, according to the man known as the father of the web

     * 340,282,366,920,938,000, 000,000,000,000,000, 000,000 new web  
addresses created by internet chiefs . . . so we won’t run out of  
space soon, then

     * Who were the 'fathers of the internet'?

Related Links

     * The future is all in the clouds

     * Vint Cerf: 'web is running out of addresses'

     * Who were the 'fathers of the internet'?

Scientists at CERN, where the world wide web was invented, created the  
€500 million Grid because they realised that a single computer would  
not be able to cope with the amount of data the LHC is expected to  
produce each year – 15 petabytes, or 15 million gigabytes, which would  
fill 20 million CDs.

They said that it was an extra facility laid on top of the internet,  
which originally linked computers around the world in the Seventies.

Dr Bob Jones, a CERN scientist, said: “The [world wide] web allows you  
to access information on other computers. What the Grid allows you to  
do is not only access the information, but make use of their computing  
resources and power.”

He likened it to the National Grid. Users would be able to tap into  
massive amounts of processing power, but the source of the power would  
change, depending on availability.

Processing tasks will be distributed between 11 gateway computer  
centres in ten countries, including Britain, which will share them out  
between more than 140 sites.

One of the first jobs the Grid will tackle is handling the raw data  
for CERN’s experiments into finding proof of the Higgs boson, the so- 
called God particle.

Its uses, however, extend well beyond particle physics and it has  
already been used on a smaller scale in research into diseases such as  
malaria and bird flu. “The Grid cannot find a cure for cancer, but  
what it can do is make it quicker,” said Dr Jones, explaining that  
what might have taken a decade could now be done in weeks.

David Britton, Professor of Physics at Glasgow University and a  
leading figure in the Grid project, said: “The old traditional way to  
find cures for diseases is that you would go to the lab and try mixing  
various drugs and see how they work.”

With the Grid, he said, scientists could run hundreds of thousands of  
simulations to create a shortlist of the drugs that are most likely to  
offer the potential for a cure. Researchers can then get to work  
testing the drugs singled out as promising.

The Grid has also already been used to save lives in the immediate  
aftermath of earthquakes. Using the seismic data, scientists can use  
the Grid for simulations that pinpoint which areas are most affected,  
allowing rescue teams to direct their efforts where they are most  
needed.

Many believe the world wide web and the internet are the same thing,  
but the internet is actually a massive network of networks, which  
connects millions of computers together globally, and the web is an  
information-sharing model built on top of the internet, which allows  
information to be accessed over the medium of the internet.