<!DOCTYPE html> <!--[if lt IE 7]> <html class="no-js lt-ie9 lt-ie8 lt-ie7"> <![endif]--> <!--[if IE 7]> <html class="no-js lt-ie9 lt-ie8"> <![endif]--> <!--[if IE 8]> <html class="no-js lt-ie9"> <![endif]--> <!--[if gt IE 8]><!--> <html class="no-js"> <!--<![endif]--> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1"> <title></title> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:400,300,600,700,800&subset=latin,cyrillic-ext' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.min.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css"> <script src="js/vendor/modernizr-2.6.2-respond-1.1.0.min.js"></script> </head> <body> <!--[if lt IE 7]> <p class="chromeframe">You are using an <strong>outdated</strong> browser. Please <a href="http://browsehappy.com/">upgrade your browser</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/chromeframe/?redirect=true">activate Google Chrome Frame</a> to improve your experience.</p> <![endif]--> <div class="main-container"> <div class="main wrapper clearfix"> <article > <h1 class="page_title">No Datacenter: Post-Cloud Chronicles</h1> <p>Version: 001</p> <p>This chronicle introduces technologies that will eventually supercede Cloud Computing. </p> <p>I am a software developer. Friends call me Si Yan Ge (4 eyes). I have been using Internet since 1989 and the Web since 1993. I developed my first commercial software in 1981. Now I run a small software company in Shanghai.</p> <p>Internet as we know it today has become an essential tool for business competitiveness. Cloud Computing further cut costs by automating business sotware deployment. However, modern Internet and Cloud Computing suffers from new plagues: <a href="http://iwgcr.org/availability-ranking-of-world-cloud-computing-2012-update/">lack of resiliency</a>, <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/1999/168184/DG-4-JOIN_ET%281999%29168184_EN.pdf">lack of trade secret</a>, <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/the-danger-the-coming-big-cloud-monopolies-114">lack of competition</a> and <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/greenpeace-report-cloud-and-internet-use-sucks-energy-emits-co2.html">high CO2 emissions</a>.</p> <p>Both plagues originate in the same place: data centers.</p> <p>Various projects have tried in recent years to fix data centers plagues. All projects have failed or will fail.</p> <p>Data centers are hopelessly flawed because they create an incentive for anti-competitive business practices that are not resilient and thus have no long term future. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman">Richard Stallman was right</a> in 2008, even though our motivation here is primarily economy. </p> <p>This chronicle will thus focus on theories, business models and technologies that can lead to the elimination of data centers, for the great benefit of long term economy. Thanks to HTML5 and low cost mobile technologies (created in China), this goal is no longer a dream of researchers. </p> <p>Most important: if you create or discover any new technology that can supercede Cloud Computing, let me know! I will publish it.</p> <p>Si Yan Ge<br/>Shanghai, November 19, 2013<br/> nodatacenter@suomi24.fi </p> <h2>Chapter 1: Decentralization Theory</h2> <p>One should understand which key aspects in successful decentralized production systems lead to their success. We could identify until now four aspects: Intelligent End Points (Internet), Zero Marginal Cost (Free / Open Source Software), Zero Knowledge (Resilient Computing) an Zero Emission (App Stores).</p> <p><b>Intelligent End Points</b>. What makes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet">Internet</a> resilient is the idea of placing network intelligence at the end-points. End-points are in particular reponsible of <i>reliable delivery of data, rather than the network itself</i>.</p> <p><b>Zero Marginal Cost</b>. What makes a small company able to compete with a bigger one without requiring a lot if capital is its ability to distribute products or services to millions of users at zero marginal cost. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source">Open Source</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux">Linux</a> in particular are typical examples of how zero marginal cost business models can defeat a large coporation in less than 10 years.</p> <p><b>Zero Knowledge</b>. What makes a computer system able to protect trade secrets is the combination of cryptography and system architectures that keep no knowledge of how users could access it.</p> <p><b>Zero Emission</b>. What eliminates CO2 emisions can be either to turnoff computer device or to reuse their all thermal power to heat households.</p> <p>The table bellow compares current cloud, ideal post-cloud and two technologies that cloud superce cloud: Resilient Computing and Offline HTML5.</p> <p> <table border="1" align="center"> <tr> <th> </th> <th>Cloud </th> <th>Post Cloud </th> <th>Resilient Computing </th> <th>Offline HTML5 </th> </tr> <tr> <td>Intelligent End Points </td> <td>No </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Yes </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zero Marginal Cost </td> <td>No </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Possible </td> <td>Yes </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zero Knowledge </td> <td>Difficult </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Yes </td> <tr> <td>Zero Emisson </td> <td>No </td> <td>Yes </td> <td>Possible </td> <td>Yes </td> </tr> </table> </p> <h2>Chapter 2: Resilient Computing</h2> <p>Resilient Computing solves the lack of resiliency of Cloud Computing by decentralizing servers and placing them in homes or in offices. It uses the same kind of technologies as Cloud Compuuting to automate provisionning, billing, etc. Resilient Computing is compatible with most legacy applications (Linux, Windows, etc.). Its adoption does not require migration effort nor new developments.</p> <p>Resilient Computing can also solve in theory other problems found in Cloud Computing. However, due to current lack of support in the industry (consumer electronics, telecommunication), zero marginal cost can not be reached. This currently limits its adoption to niche markets: mission critical applications, government safety, high performance computing.</p> <p>Resilient Computing requires modern routing technology in order to circumvent connectivity incidents that frequently occur between telecommunication companies due to human error or bugs. So-called <b>overlay</b> networks that create a virtual Internet on top of Internet provide full network resiliency and a kind of provider independent service level agreement.</p> <h3>Timeline:</h3> <ul> <li>2010 - <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/596689/ViFiB_Wants_You_to_Host_Cloud_Computing_At_Home">VIFIB</a> introduces resilient computing as a safer, cheaper alternative to cloud computing that can also heat homes. VIFIB relies on <a href="http://community.slapos.org">SlapOS</a> open source technology. VIFIB is now used to deploy mission critical ERP systems for <a href="http://www.cio-online.com/actualites/lire-bipetgo-lance-sa-vente-en-ligne-avec-un-module-dedie-dans-le-cloud-5422-page-1.html">French highways</a>. </li> <li>2010 - <a href="http://www.qarnot-computing.com/">Qarnot Computing</a> introduces servers that act as electric heaters for households. Qarnot provides a platform to allocate high performance computing tasks on its servers. </li> <li>2011 - <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=150265">Microsoft Research</a> publishes a research paper by Jie Liu. This paper explains how by placing data centers in buildings, buildings could be heated by the heat of servers. </li> <li>2012 - <a href="http://git.erp5.org/gitweb/re6stnet.git?js=1">re6st overaly network</a>). re6st provides stable connectivity between servers located in different homes, offices or datacenters. IPv6 routing and service level agreement (SLA) is handled by a peer-to-peer public mesh of end points. It was adopted by <a href="http://community.slapos.org">SlapOS</a>. </li> </ul> <p><i>to be completed...</i></p> <h2>Chapter 3: Offline HTML5</h2> <p><a href="http://diveintohtml5.info/offline.html">Offline HTML5</a> eliminates data centers by eliminating servers. This approach requires to redevelop all applications in a quite different way. Redevelopment effort can be costly even though migration tools exist. </p> <p>Offline HTML5 is compatible with Zero Marginal Cost business model. This is a huge advantage over Resilient Computing in order to accelerate adoption. Considering the growing importance of HTML5 in mobile device (phones, tablets) and the growing importance of Javascript in enteprise computing, Offline HTML5 is probably the appropriate approach for the long term whereas resilient computing satisfies short term needs and niche markets (ex. big data).</p> <h3>Timeline:</h3> <ul> <li>2008 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5">HTML5 first proposal</a> introduces key concepts that will lead to offline apps. </li> <li>2010 - <a href="http://www.ung-project.org/project/ungdoc">UNG is Not Google</a> proves that it is possible to develop a clone of Google Docs as a pure client side application that no longer requires an application server. </li> <li>2011 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC">WebRTC</a> provides the bases for browser-to-browser networking. </li> <li>2011 - <a href="http://bellard.org/jslinux/">LinuxJS</a> proves that Javascript is fast enough to emulate a PC. This opens in theory the way to Resilient Computing based on HTML5 that uses web browsers as servers. </li> <li>2011 - <a href="http://j-io.org/">JIO</a> provides an abstraction to access local and remote content in offline HTML5 apps. </li> <li>2013 - <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/experimental.socket.html">Chrome Socket API</a> is an extension for Chrome that turns the brower into into a generic server that can listen or send TCP or UDP. </li> <li>2013 - <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/raw-sockets/">W3C Raw Sockets</a> propose standard P2P networking between Web Browsers. </li> <li>2013 - <a href="http://ozan.io/p/">P</a> provides a resilient overlay network based on WebRTC. This opens in theory the way to Resilient Computing based on HTML5 that WebRTC based overlay networks. </li> <li>2013 - <a href="http://www.benjamincburns.com/2013/11/10/jor1k-ethmac-support.html">jor1k ethmac</a> network virtualization in Javascript opens the possibility to implement IP stack in Javascript and increase network security of HTML5 beyond the limitations of proprietary operating systems. </li> <li>2013 - <a href="http://www.officejs.com">OfficeJS</a> introduced at Tech Crunch Shanghai is the first platform independent appstore of Offline HTML5 apps. </li> </ul> <h2>Chapter 4: Cookbook</h2> <h3>Recipe 1: JQM + JIO</h3> <p><i>coming soon</i></p> <h3>Recipe 2: Emscripten</h3> <p><i>coming soon</i></p> <h2>References</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://iwgcr.org/availability-ranking-of-world-cloud-computing-2012-update">Availability Ranking of World Cloud Computing – June 2013 Update</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-glaser/america-as-economic-spy-n_b_4190948.html">America as Economic Spy: NSA's Mission Is Self-Aggrandizement, Not Fighting Terrorism</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/1999/168184/DG-4-JOIN_ET%281999%29168184_EN.pdf">DEVELOPMENT OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY AND RISK OF ABUSE OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/the-danger-the-coming-big-cloud-monopolies-114">The danger of the coming 'big cloud' monopolies</a></li> <li><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/greenpeace-report-cloud-and-internet-use-sucks-energy-emits-co2.html">Cloud computing and Internet use suck energy, emit CO2, says Greenpeace</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet">Alternative Internet</a></li> <li><a href=""></a></li> <li><a href=""></a></li> <li><a href=""></a></li> <li><a href=""></a></li> </ul> <h2>About this page</h2> <p>This page is hosted in a private home using a micro-server. Content is brought to you by a proxy cache hosted by <a href="http://aliyun.com/">Aliyun</a> in China.</p> </article> </div> <!-- #main --> </div> </body> </html>