I'd love to get into this lab and see their stuff in action.

posted: 8:25:45 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

A number of blogs I subscribe to have pointed to Blog Torrent this weekend. I had to go and check it out because of the projects I'm working on. From what I can tell, Blog Torrent is an evolutionary step for BitTorrent. I didn't download Blog Torrent and install it on my web server. However, I did attempt to download a torrent and create a torrent. I ran into a number of problems. Blog Torrent has two download methods: a plain torrent and "easy download." The "easy download" has the torrent file and a BitTorrent download utility packaged together in a single executable. From a security perspective, this is a bad idea especially given that the executable is generated on the fly when a file is uploaded. There is no way to be 100% certain that there is nothing else injected into the build process. The fact that this is entirely web based and does not require client software is a major step forward for BitTorrent, even though I was unable to successfully perform any of the advertised functions. The proxy and firewall issues need to go away. It looks like an applet of some sort is attempting to launch when I tried to upload a file. There should be no reason why an applet needs to launch in order to create a torrent. Blog Torrent does not solve any distribution problems related to serving up large media files. It only solves problems associated with the publishing and downloading the media files; albeit not very successfully at this point. Blog Torrent still requires peers to seed downloads for distribution. I highly encourage the team working on Blog Torrent to press forward. I believe they are heading in the right direction. Making complicated technology easier to use is always a worth while endeavor.

posted: 12:14:21 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

A year ago I was writing a lot about the need for content distribution for weblogs to hedge against the Slashdot effect and for RSS distribution. Since then, companies the likes of RSScache and Feedburner have come about with the sole focus of RSS caching, distribution, and providing stats to bloggers. We've been down this road before in the mid to late 90's. It's the same problem. RSS is too narrow a focus. There is still the weblog site and, now, Podcasts. What is needed is a personal content distribution system, or, as John Robb would call it, a Personal Broadcast Network. I'm working on it. No one has put the pieces together and I'm tired of waiting around.

Personal Broadcast Networks as the title of a Forrester report John wrote and I conducted research for back in 1997. It's funny that it has taken seven plus years for everything to come together to make the concept possible on a truly personal level.

posted: 8:33:43 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

Many lessons can be learned from the Petabox project over at the Internet Archive project. An increasing need for mobile, large scale, inexpensive storage facilities exists. Expanding on the need for these storage facilities is also the need for mobile, large scale, inexpensive computing, power, and operations facilities. Facilities like this exist for the military, oil, and mining industries, but are extremely expensive. The Petabox has a TCO over three years of approximately $2.1MM. This is amazing. A convoy of six vehicles – storage, computing, operations, two power trailers, and a fuel tanker -- could operate a huge mobile data collection facility. Each container could be outfitted with independent communications equipment. External and protected patch panels would interconnect all of the containers in addition to power connections. These are the building blocks for large mobile computing facilities. With ever increasing concerns of terrorism, these types of facilities will be employed by industry as a risk avoidance and mitigation strategy in urban areas.

posted: 1:26:50 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

This is Microsoft's bid in the grid computing space. If anyone can address the issue of running applications on a grid it will be Microsoft.

posted: 8:14:38 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

Microsoft is hopping on board the server virtualization bandwagon in a big way, not just with Virtual PC. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 is squarely taking on VMware.

posted: 8:11:41 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

Cassatt Corporation appears to have a nicely packaged grid platform. However, they do not appear to address issues of running applications on their grid. The exeuctive team is impressive. This is definitely going to be one to watch.

posted: 11:17:35 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()    

InfoWorld reports IBM will soon offer server and storage virtualization software.

posted: 2:25:39 PM  permalink  trackback ()  comments ()