The NYTimes has an interesting article about new developments is academic grid computing.
At one point in my research I had a problem that I thought might need a CPU-year of processing time. It was very parallelizable, so I looked around for a grid system I could use. All the academic systems and supercomputer centers require too much signup, with a difficult process to apply for computer time.
I found this nifty service called Processing On Demand from Gateway. Strangely, I don't remember reading about it before, since it seems like a natural slashdot topic. They have 6,800 PC's in their stores across the country, and they all run software to turn them into a grid when no one is using them. For a few thousand dollars, you can get a CPU-year of processing in a few hours of real time. To me, that is a lot more interesting than the more blue sky systems.
As it turns out, I changed direction and ended up not needing to solve my hard problem, but it would have been fun.
I've been recruiting developers for two anti-spam startup's here in the bay area. I've come across some pretty talented folks on the east coast. Any needs at your startup?
Posted by: Mitch | January 30, 2004 at 07:03 PM