Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters
For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
More E-Mail Newsletters 
Computerworld 2007Subscribe to Computerworld
40 years of the most authoritative source of news and information for IT leaders.

R&D Gems

Companies are already lining up to adopt some of the coolest technologies from university research labs
 

January 31, 2000 -- You can almost hear the paradigms shifting way up in those ivory towers. At the University of Virginia, they're inventing a "worldwide virtual computer." At the University of California, it's a "planet-scale, self-organizing" system. And at Carnegie Mellon University, they call it an "invisible halo of computing."
While researchers at each of these universities are pursuing their visions in very different ways, at a fundamental level, they all are dreaming the same dream for the 21st century. They say that computers will disappear yet be everywhere, that virtually every person and thing will have digital connections to every other person and thing and that the pain and risks of computer use will greatly diminish. They say the impact on computer managers and users will be profound.
The vision stretches far into the future by information technology standards -- 10 years at the University of California at Berkeley -- but some capabilities are scheduled for prototyping in the next year or so. And the University of Virginia has already found real-world users for Legion, its virtual computer.
"This research is moving us in the right direction," says Leonard Kleinrock, a computer scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and one of the fathers of the Internet. "We are going to have distributed intelligence, distributed knowledge. Internet services will be everywhere, always available, always on, but most of all, invisible, just like electricity is."
Legion: A Worldwide Virtual Computer
University of Virginia
"We need vast amounts of computer power, and there are problems we won't even touch unless we know the computer power is there," says Michael Crowley, a scientist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. For example, a job that models protein-folding can run for 12 hours on a supercomputer, so Scripps asks Legion to roam the country sniffing out spare computer cycles.
"We just say, 'Legion, run it,' and it finds machines that are open, finds the correct executable, gets all the input files over there, runs the job and brings the output back," Crowley says.
Legion ( http://legion.virginia.edu ) is a highly flexible, wide-area operating system designed to build a virtual computer from millions of distributed hosts and trillions of objects -- while presenting the image of a single computer to the user.

Continued...
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | NEXT  

Print this Story Send Us Feedback E-mail this Story Digg! Digg this Story Slashdot this Story
Microsoft promises four patches next week
Google gives away home-cooked Web application security scanner
Storm botnet stages Fourth of July attacks
More top stories...
Microsoft trumpets security additions in upcoming IE8
Apple cuts price of high-end SSD MacBook Air by $500
Ultrathin showdown: Apple MacBook Air vs. Lenovo ThinkPad X300 vs. Toshiba Portege R500
All it takes is a couple hours and about $125 to breathe new life into an old laptop. Here's how.
Is Microsoft's Golden Age over? What are Gates' most memorable quotes? Find out in Computerworld's complete coverage of the end of the Bill Gates era at Microsoft.
There are some things your CIO definitely doesn't want to hear. Also don't miss the flipside, Five things you should always tell your boss.
With its latest version, Mozilla's browser continues to raise the bar for what Web browsers should be.
Reviews, analyses, how-tos, visual tours, hot issues and predictions about Microsoft's new OS.
Four years from now, the IT field will be a vastly different place. Will you be ready?
All Zones
Application Performance Zone
Business Continuity Zone
Data Center Management Zone
Enterprise-Class Security Zone
The File Data Management Zone
Grid Computing on Windows Zone
Security Management Zone
ITIL Best Practices Zone
The SAS Zone
Storage Virtualization Zone
Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone

Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Enabling Data Centers that Are Both Automated and Dynamic
Enabling Data Centers that Are Both Automated and Dynamic
View this webcast now!
Go to the webcast 
Computerworld Technology Briefing: An open-source path to optimal virtualization
Download this Technology Briefing now!
(Source: Novell/IBM/Intel) Virtualization is about a lot more than just lowering total cost of ownership. In fact users that have taken an open source path to virtualization have realized the additional, mission-critical benefit of markedly reduced IT complexity, as well as a more flexible infrastructure that is easier to change to meet shifting, often unpredictable business requirements.
Download this executive briefing download
Rapid application development, rapid results
Download this special report now!
(Source: Intersystems) All too many businesses suffer from IT infrastructures that are a hodge-podge of disconnected databases and applications. What's needed is the ability rapidly develop connected applications under a unified service-oriented architecture. InterSystems Ensemble integration environment and Cache database are effective tools in answering this need, delivering a rapid ROI.
Download this white paper go
White Papers
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.
Deploying Virtualized NetWare on Linux Whitepaper
Toward More Flexible, Next-Generation Collaboration Solutions
Driving Business Success Through Workgroup Choice and Flexibility
View more whitepapers 
Virtualized iSCSI SANs: Flexible, Scalable, Enterprise Storage for Virtual Infrastructures
Enterprises of all sizes are building flexible storage infrastructures using iSCSI and advanced virtualization technologies. This joint VMware and Dell EqualLogic Virtualized iSCSI SAN white paper describes a virtualized infrastructure that applies storage and server virtualization technologies to cost-effectively achieve a flexible, high-performance, dynamic IT infrastructure that is simple to manage and scale.

Download this white paper 
Case Study: Simplified DR Planning and Implementation
LifeLink Foundation needed to provide business continuity and DR of critical transplant related information to multiple locations and needed to manage DR planning and implementation in a hurricane zone. Learn how VMware & Dell's EqualLogic iSCSI SANs worked together to implement two remote sites providing consolidated virtual storage, snapshot-based backup and recovery.

Download this case study  
Webcast: Disaster Recovery Simplified – iSCSI and VMware Site Recovery Manager Deliver Results
Quick recovery of operations after a site failure requires major planning and testing, dependent on an infrastructure and recovery plan that can be simply and affordably deployed. Download this Webcast presented by Dell and VMware to learn how new levels of integration between Dell's EqualLogic iSCSI storage area networks (SANs) and server virtualization can help solve these critical issues.

View this webcast 
Webcast: Data Protection and Disaster Recovery with iSCSI and VMware
Data protection and disaster recovery are top of mind for any IT manager, and the challenges of complexity and cost remain as obstacles. Dell EqualLogic virtualized iSCSI SANs and VMware Infrastructure 3 enhance the scalability, ease of use, and reliable operation of IT infrastructures to withstand failures and overcome disasters

View this webcast