Potentials
True (Altruistic) Volunteer Computing
- potentially tap millions of computers around the world
- cool problems (e.g., RC5, Chess, computer “olympics”)
- worthy causes
- local (e.g., traffic), or global (e.g., medical, environmental)
Forced (Institutional) Volunteer Computing
- easy & cheap supercomputing for companies and universities
- collaboratories: enable institutions to share computing power
Paid (Commercial) Volunteer Computing
- market systems: buy, sell, trade processor cycles as commodity
- contract systems: use cycles to pay for online services
NOIA (Network of Information Appliances)
- use computational power of set-top boxes (e.g., WebTV)
- can be commercialized and/or contract-based
- tens of millions of processors (note: Greek noia means “mind”)