For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and communications typically for illegal activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need for capacity.
According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through a series of counter measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate* "3 laws of Cloud Computing"* borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been > private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and > often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of > people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and > communications typically for illegal activities.
> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet > ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as > well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information > sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All > of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of > covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private > computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to > pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need > for capacity.
> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term > Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which > were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for > security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from > ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists > and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term > has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file > sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments > around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff > judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and > Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of > botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has > abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move > beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project > power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct > such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no > longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than > hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb > in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more > then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited > to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information > driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental > organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are > quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly > pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, > members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, > anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network > environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. > An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of > decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through > a series of counter measures.
> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private > corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal > ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves > from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
Now you know my side project, I call it singularity. (One cloud to rule them all) The only problem is I keep expecting a Terminator robot from the future to show up at my door.
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote: > In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate "3 laws of Cloud > Computing" > borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
> A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human > being to come to harm. > A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such > orders would conflict with the First Law. > A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not > conflict with the First or Second Law.
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
>> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been >> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and >> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of >> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and >> communications typically for illegal activities.
>> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet >> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as >> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information >> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All >> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of >> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private >> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to >> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need >> for capacity.
>> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term >> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which >> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for >> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from >> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists >> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term >> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file >> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
>> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments >> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff >> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and >> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of >> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has >> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move >> beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project >> power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct >> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no >> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than >> hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb >> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
>> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more >> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited >> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information >> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental >> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are >> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly >> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, >> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, >> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network >> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. >> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of >> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through >> a series of counter measures.
>> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private >> corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal >> ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves >> from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing & self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_%28Terminator%29> . If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote: > In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate* "3 laws of > Cloud Computing"* > borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
> 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a > human being to come to harm. > 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where > such orders would conflict with the First Law. > 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection > does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
>> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been >> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and >> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of >> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and >> communications typically for illegal activities.
>> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet >> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as >> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information >> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All >> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of >> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private >> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to >> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need >> for capacity.
>> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term >> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which >> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for >> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from >> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists >> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term >> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file >> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
>> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments >> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff >> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and >> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of >> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has >> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move >> beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project >> power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct >> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no >> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than >> hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb >> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
>> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more >> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited >> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information >> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental >> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are >> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly >> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, >> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, >> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network >> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. >> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of >> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through >> a series of counter measures.
>> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private >> corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal >> ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves >> from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of autonomic computing to certain degree.
quote:
A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The *Autonomic Computing Initiative* (ACI) aims at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous system<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system>of the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious intervention.
In a self-managing system <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-management>Autonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined the following four functional areas:
- *Self-Configuration*: Automatic configuration of components; - *Self-Healing*: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; - *Self-Optimization*: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements; - *Self-Protection*: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks.
IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment model<http://www-03.ibm.com/autonomic/levels.shtml>, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic, self-managing systems. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington <s...@charrington.com>wrote:
> If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the > implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
> :-)
> Sam
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>wrote:
>> In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate* "3 laws of >> Cloud Computing"* >> borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
>> 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a >> human being to come to harm. >> 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where >> such orders would conflict with the First Law. >> 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection >> does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
>> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
>>> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been >>> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and >>> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of >>> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and >>> communications typically for illegal activities.
>>> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet >>> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as >>> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information >>> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All >>> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of >>> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private >>> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to >>> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need >>> for capacity.
>>> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term >>> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which >>> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for >>> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from >>> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists >>> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term >>> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file >>> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
>>> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments >>> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff >>> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and >>> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of >>> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has >>> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move >>> beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project >>> power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct >>> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no >>> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than >>> hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb >>> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
>>> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more >>> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited >>> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information >>> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental >>> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are >>> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly >>> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, >>> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, >>> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network >>> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. >>> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of >>> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through >>> a series of counter measures.
>>> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private >>> corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal >>> ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves >>> from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
----- Original Message ---- From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of autonomic computing to certain degree.
quote: A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous systemof the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious intervention. In a self-managing systemAutonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined the following four functional areas: * Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components; * Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; * Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements; * Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks. IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment model, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic, self-managing systems.source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington <s...@charrington.com> wrote:
A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing & self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet.
If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
:-)
Sam
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate"3 laws of Cloud Computing" borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and communications typically for illegal activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need for capacity.
According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through a series of counter measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
Yep, interesting that you mention autonomics. They are very relevant,
especially more so in a cloud environment. Usually these kind of systems
do not get there in one shot, but go thru stages - viz connected,
reactive, proactive and finally adaptive/autonomic. Long time ago, we
had worked on a paper on this topic
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/autonomic/library/ac-summary/ac-cisco.
html. I think the cloud computing is in the "connected" stage. We have
to build "reactive-ness" to the protocols like the AWS gossip and create
baselines before even going to a proactive state. BTW, many of the
network protocols and the state machines thereof handle these situations
very well.
Cheers
<k/>
From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Khazret Sapenov
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00 PM
To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of
autonomic computing to certain degree.
quote:
A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing
systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The
Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims at providing the foundation
for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous system
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system> of the human
body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g.
respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious
intervention.
In a self-managing system <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-management>
Autonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not
control the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and
rules that serve as an input for the self-management process. For this
process, IBM has defined the following four functional areas:
* Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components; * Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; * Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources
to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined
requirements; * Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from
arbitrary attacks.
IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment model
<http://www-03.ibm.com/autonomic/levels.shtml> , for its deployment:
Level 1 is the basic level that presents the current situation where
systems are essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce
increasingly automated management functions, while level 5 represents
the ultimate goal of autonomic, self-managing systems.
If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the
implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
:-)
Sam
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>
wrote:
In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate "3
laws of Cloud Computing"
borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings,
except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>
wrote:
For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have
been
private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert
and
often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized
groups of
people engaged in the sharing of information, computing
resources and
communications typically for illegal activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and
botnets as
well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government
information
sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets.
All
of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the
form of
covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able
to
pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding
need
for capacity.
According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The
term
Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks
which
were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network
lists
and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the
term
has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private
file
sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for
governments
around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III.
staff
judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the
need of
botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world
has
abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to
move
beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can
project
power by building an af.mil <http://af.mil/> robot network
(botnet) that can direct
such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they
can no
longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries
than
hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet
bomb
in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is
more
then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just
limited
to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern
information
driven economy the distinction between corporation and
governmental
organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities
are
quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By
covertly
pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
members are able to counter or block network threats in a
private,
anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance
system.
An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats
through
a series of counter measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of
private
corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the
legal
ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect
ourselves
from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
Many of the discussions on this forum, including the one below keep bringing to mind the "Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing . Perhaps the eight "laws" of cloud computing should be the reverse of them:
Unlike traditional architecture, cloud applications will be designed with the following assumptions:
Some platforms, such as GigaSpaces and others, have been designed in such a way. For example, I don't know if it's holy grail stuff or not, but we provide self-healing and self-optimizing capabilities via our SLA-Driven Container. It's been particularly appealing to EC2 users who are asking us "What happens if an MI fails?". Our answer is simple "You don't care".
From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Nugent Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:05 PM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Khaz, that would be the "Holy Grail" folks have been looking for for a couple of years. Please let us know when you find it...:-)
----- Original Message ---- From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of autonomic computing to certain degree.
quote:
A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system> autonomic nervous system of the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious intervention.
In a <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-management> self-managing system Autonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined the following four functional areas:
* Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components; * Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; * Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements; * Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks.
IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the <http://www-03.ibm.com/autonomic/levels.shtml> Autonomic deployment model, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic, self-managing systems.
If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
:-)
Sam
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate "3 laws of Cloud Computing"
borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and communications typically for illegal activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need for capacity.
According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project power by building an af.mil <http://af.mil/> robot network (botnet) that can direct such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through a series of counter measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
Hey, Geva, Gigaspaces is cool stuff but at $1.60 an instance hour I'd say it's far from grail status (much less Holy.) Given the number of instances one needs to make it work properly it's priced just like enterprise software. I know you guys are entitled to a reasonable return on you're investment but...
The big potential draw of cloud computing is massive scalability at low cost. Doing the math, an instance year for a small but functioning Gigaspaces system is, at the minimum, $63K a year (3 large instances @ .80 plus $1.60 times 8736 hours per year.) This, of course, does not include other vendors charges - I'm guessing Oracle will be somewhere in the $3-5 dollar range. All of the sudden the stack is getting expensive...
----- Original Message ----
From: Geva Perry <gevape...@gmail.com>
To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 4:45:57 PM
Subject: RE: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Many of the discussions on this forum,
including the one below keep bringing to mind the “Eight Fallacies of
Distributed Computing” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing . Perhaps the eight “laws” of cloud computing should be the reverse
of them:
Unlike traditional architecture, cloud
applications will be designed with the following assumptions:
1. The network is *not* reliable.
2. Latency is *not* zero.
3. Bandwidth is *not* infinite.
4. The network is *not* secure.
5. Topology doesn't change. [Does as opposed to Doesn’t]
6. There is *not* one administrator.
7. Transport cost is *not* zero.
8. The network is *not* homogeneous.
Some platforms, such as GigaSpaces and
others, have been designed in such a way. For example, I don’t know if it’s
holy grail stuff or not, but we provide self-healing and self-optimizing
capabilities via our SLA-Driven Container. It’s been particularly
appealing to EC2 users who are asking us “What happens if an MI fails?”.
Our answer is simple “You don’t care”.
From:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Nugent
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:05
PM
To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark
Cloud
Khaz, that would be the "Holy Grail" folks have
been looking for for a couple of years. Please let us know when you find
it...:-)
Ray
----- Original Message
----
From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>
To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM
Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of
autonomic computing to certain degree.
quote:
A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked
computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims
at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic
nervous systemof the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions
(e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious
intervention.
In a self-managing
systemAutonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not control
the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve
as an input for the self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined
the following four functional areas:
* Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components; * Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; * Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements; * Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks. IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment model, for its deployment: Level 1 is
the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are
essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated
management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic,
self-managing systems.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington <s...@charrington.com> wrote:
A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing
& self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet.
If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the
implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
:-)
Sam
On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate"3 laws of Cloud Computing"
borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>
wrote:
For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been
private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and
often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of
people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and
communications typically for illegal activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information
sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All
of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of
covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to
pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need
for capacity.
According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term
Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which
were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists
and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term
has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file
sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments
around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff
judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of
botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has
abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move
beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project
power by building an af.mil robot
network (botnet) that can direct
such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no
longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than
hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb
in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more
then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited
to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental
organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are
quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly
pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
members are able to counter or block network threats in a private,
anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system.
An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through
a series of counter measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private
corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal
ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves
from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
> Hey, Geva, Gigaspaces is cool stuff but at $1.60 an instance hour > I'd say it's far from grail status (much less Holy.) Given the > number of instances one needs to make it work properly it's priced > just like enterprise software. I know you guys are entitled to a > reasonable return on you're investment but...
> The big potential draw of cloud computing is massive scalability at > low cost. Doing the math, an instance year for a small but > functioning Gigaspaces system is, at the minimum, $63K a year (3 > large instances @ .80 plus $1.60 times 8736 hours per year.) This, > of course, does not include other vendors charges - I'm guessing > Oracle will be somewhere in the $3-5 dollar range. All of the sudden > the stack is getting expensive...
Well, you could use Rio (https://rio.dev.java.net) for free on EC2 [1]. AFAIK, Rio is one of they key enablers upon which the GigaSpaces "SLA Driven Container" is built (of course without their space based implementation and open spaces spring support). Rio provides the dynamic deployment, built-in fault detection handling and policy driven support here. With the next release of the Rio project you will also be able to dynamically deploy & manage most any JEE application [2], not just the ones traditionally written that use the dynamic application support that Rio provides. If this is something of interest, please let me know.
> Many of the discussions on this forum, including the one below keep
> bringing to mind the “Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing > . Perhaps the eight “laws” of cloud computing should be the reverse
> of them:
Isn't that the point of calling them fallacies? that the reverse is
actually true? IOW, these "laws" are generally understood already by
anyone doing distributed computing?
> Unlike traditional architecture, cloud applications will be designed
> with the following assumptions:
> • The network is *not* reliable.
> • Latency is *not* zero.
> • Bandwidth is *not* infinite.
> • The network is *not* secure.
> • Topology doesn't change. [Does as opposed to Doesn’t]
> • There is *not* one administrator.
> • Transport cost is *not* zero.
> • The network is *not* homogeneous.
> Some platforms, such as GigaSpaces and others, have been designed in
> such a way. For example, I don’t know if it’s holy grail stuff or
> not, but we provide self-healing and self-optimizing capabilities
> via our SLA-Driven Container. It’s been particularly appealing to
> EC2 users who are asking us “What happens if an MI fails?”. Our
> answer is simple “You don’t care”.
> Geva Perry
> www.gigaspaces.com .
> From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > ] On Behalf Of Ray Nugent
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:05 PM
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
> Khaz, that would be the "Holy Grail" folks have been looking for for
> a couple of years. Please let us know when you find it...:-)
> Ray
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM
> Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
> Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of
> autonomic computing to certain degree.
> quote:
> A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing
> systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The
> Autonomic Computing Initiative(ACI) aims at providing the foundation
> for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous
> system of the human body. This nervous system controls important
> bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure)
> without any conscious intervention.
> In a self-managing system Autonomic System, the human operator takes
> on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he
> defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the
> self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined the
> following four functional areas:
> • Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components;
> • Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults;
> • Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources
> to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined
> requirements;
> • Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from
> arbitrary attacks.
> IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment
> model, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents
> the current situation where systems are essentially managed
> manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management
> functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic,
> self-managing systems.
> source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing > On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington
> <s...@charrington.com> wrote:
> A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing &
> self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet.
> If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the
> implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
> :-)
> Sam
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate "3 laws
> of Cloud Computing"
> borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
> • A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow
> a human being to come to harm.
> • A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except
> where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
> • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
> does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
> more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics > On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been
> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and
> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of
> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and
> communications typically for illegal activities.
> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information
> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All
> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of
> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to
> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need
> for capacity.
> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term
> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which
> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists
> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term
> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file
> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments
> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff
> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of
> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has
> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move
> beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project
> power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct
> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no
> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than
> hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb
> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more
> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited
> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental
> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are
> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly
> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private,
> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system.
> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through
> a series of counter measures.
> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private
> corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal
> ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves
> from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
While this may sounds like a Internet United Nations Better Business
Bureau, the underlying questions point right at the important of cloud
computing for national security. As the world embraces cloud computing
for its ubiquity, efficiency and cost savings, the world economic
engine will become evermore dependent on cloud security and the active
management of public-private cloud interfaces.
No wonder the US DoD is jumping on the bandwagon so quickly.
On Jul 26, 3:02 pm, "Reuven Cohen" <r...@enomaly.com> wrote:
> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been
> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and
> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of
> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and
> communications typically for illegal activities.
> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information
> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All
> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of
> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to
> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need
> for capacity.
> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term
> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which
> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists
> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term
> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file
> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments
> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff
> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of
> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has
> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move
> beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project
> power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct
> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no
> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than
> hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb
> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more
> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited
> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental
> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are
> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly
> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private,
> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system.
> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through
> a series of counter measures.
> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private
> corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal
> ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves
> from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
All the self healing, etc,, has been implemented on SAN, for enterprise environment for mission critical applications , such as finance, Oil, and gas, Black boxes at DOD. Storage side of CC is in very good shape going forward.
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Geir Magnusson Jr. Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 1:48 PM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
On Jul 26, 2008, at 7:45 PM, Geva Perry wrote:
> Many of the discussions on this forum, including the one below keep > bringing to mind the "Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing > . Perhaps the eight "laws" of cloud computing should be the reverse > of them:
Isn't that the point of calling them fallacies? that the reverse is actually true? IOW, these "laws" are generally understood already by anyone doing distributed computing?
> Unlike traditional architecture, cloud applications will be designed > with the following assumptions: > . The network is *not* reliable. > . Latency is *not* zero. > . Bandwidth is *not* infinite. > . The network is *not* secure. > . Topology doesn't change. [Does as opposed to Doesn't] > . There is *not* one administrator. > . Transport cost is *not* zero. > . The network is *not* homogeneous. > Some platforms, such as GigaSpaces and others, have been designed in > such a way. For example, I don't know if it's holy grail stuff or > not, but we provide self-healing and self-optimizing capabilities > via our SLA-Driven Container. It's been particularly appealing to > EC2 users who are asking us "What happens if an MI fails?". Our > answer is simple "You don't care".
> Geva Perry > www.gigaspaces.com . > From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > ] On Behalf Of Ray Nugent > Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:05 PM > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
> Khaz, that would be the "Holy Grail" folks have been looking for for > a couple of years. Please let us know when you find it...:-)
> Ray
> ----- Original Message ---- > From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> > To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com > Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM > Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud > Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of > autonomic computing to certain degree.
> quote: > A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked computing > systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The > Autonomic Computing Initiative(ACI) aims at providing the foundation > for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic nervous > system of the human body. This nervous system controls important > bodily functions (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) > without any conscious intervention.
> In a self-managing system Autonomic System, the human operator takes > on a new role: He does not control the system directly. Instead, he > defines general policies and rules that serve as an input for the > self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined the > following four functional areas:
> . Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components; > . Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults; > . Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources > to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined > requirements; > . Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from > arbitrary attacks. > IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment > model, for its deployment: Level 1 is the basic level that presents > the current situation where systems are essentially managed > manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated management > functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic, > self-managing systems.
> source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing > On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington > <s...@charrington.com> wrote: > A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing & > self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet.
> If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the > implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
> :-)
> Sam
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> > wrote: > In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate "3 laws > of Cloud Computing" > borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities: > . A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow > a human being to come to harm. > . A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except > where such orders would conflict with the First Law. > . A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection
> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been > private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and > often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of > people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and > communications typically for illegal activities.
> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet > ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as > well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information > sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All > of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of > covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private > computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to > pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need > for capacity.
> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term > Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which > were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for > security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from > ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists > and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term > has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file > sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments > around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff > judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and > Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of > botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has > abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move > beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that can project > power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct > such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no > longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than > hunks of metal and plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb > in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
> I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The world is more > then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited > to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information > driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental > organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are > quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly > pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance, > members are able to counter or block network threats in a private, > anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network > environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. > An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of > decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through > a series of counter measures.
> My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of private > corporate darknets aka dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal > ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves > from criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
The short of that post is:
Although I appreciate your saying "GigaSpaces is cool stuff" it's a
bit more than that in the sense that it brings hard cost savings
compared to the alternatives. I explain how we do that in the blog
post.
You talk about "massive scalability" on the cloud but then give an
example of 3 servers running 24/7/365. I would argue that you
shouldn't really use a cloud for such a scenario, but rather sign up
for the GigaSpaces Start-Up Program (http://www.gigaspaces.com/ startup), get the license for free and get three dedicated servers.
It'll be much cheaper. GigaSpaces (as well as Amazon EC2) shines when
it comes to scalability and particularly scaling on-demand to handle
growing and fluctuating loads.
On Jul 26, 11:03 pm, Ray Nugent <rnug...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey, Geva, Gigaspaces is cool stuff but at $1.60 an instance hour I'd say it's far from grail status (much less Holy.) Given the number of instances one needs to make it work properly it's priced just like enterprise software. I know you guys are entitled to a reasonable return on you're investment but...
> The big potential draw of cloud computing is massive scalability at low cost. Doing the math, an instance year for a small but functioning Gigaspaces system is, at the minimum, $63K a year (3 large instances @ .80 plus $1.60 times 8736 hours per year.) This, of course, does not include other vendors charges - I'm guessing Oracle will be somewhere in the $3-5 dollar range. All of the sudden the stack is getting expensive...
> Ray
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Geva Perry <gevape...@gmail.com>
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 4:45:57 PM
> Subject: RE: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
> Many of the discussions on this forum,
> including the one below keep bringing to mind the “Eight Fallacies of
> Distributed Computing”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_computing. Perhaps the eight “laws” of cloud computing should be the reverse
> of them:
> Unlike traditional architecture, cloud
> applications will be designed with the following assumptions:
> 1. The network is *not* reliable.
> 2. Latency is *not* zero.
> 3. Bandwidth is *not* infinite.
> 4. The network is *not* secure.
> 5. Topology doesn't change. [Does as opposed to Doesn’t]
> 6. There is *not* one administrator.
> 7. Transport cost is *not* zero.
> 8. The network is *not* homogeneous.
> Some platforms, such as GigaSpaces and
> others, have been designed in such a way. For example, I don’t know if it’s
> holy grail stuff or not, but we provide self-healing and self-optimizing
> capabilities via our SLA-Driven Container. It’s been particularly
> appealing to EC2 users who are asking us “What happens if an MI fails?”.
> Our answer is simple “You don’t care”.
> From:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Nugent
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:05
> PM
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark
> Cloud
> Khaz, that would be the "Holy Grail" folks have
> been looking for for a couple of years. Please let us know when you find
> it...:-)
> Ray
> ----- Original Message
> ----
> From: Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com>
> To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2008 1:00:04 PM
> Subject: Re: The Rise of The Dark Cloud
> Perhaps cloud computing solutions should incorporate a concept of
> autonomic computing to certain degree.
> quote:
> A possible solution could be to enable modern, networked
> computing systems to manage themselves without direct human intervention. The Autonomic Computing Initiative (ACI) aims
> at providing the foundation for autonomic systems. It is inspired by the autonomic
> nervous systemof the human body. This nervous system controls important bodily functions
> (e.g. respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure) without any conscious
> intervention.
> In a self-managing
> systemAutonomic System, the human operator takes on a new role: He does not control
> the system directly. Instead, he defines general policies and rules that serve
> as an input for the self-management process. For this process, IBM has defined
> the following four functional areas:
> * Self-Configuration: Automatic configuration of components;
> * Self-Healing: Automatic discovery, and correction of faults;
> * Self-Optimization: Automatic monitoring and control of resources to ensure the optimal functioning with respect to the defined requirements;
> * Self-Protection: Proactive identification and protection from arbitrary attacks.
> IBM defined five evolutionary levels, or the Autonomic deployment model, for its deployment: Level 1 is
> the basic level that presents the current situation where systems are
> essentially managed manually. Levels 2 - 4 introduce increasingly automated
> management functions, while level 5 represents the ultimate goal of autonomic,
> self-managing systems.
> source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_computing > On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Sam Charrington <s...@charrington.com> wrote:
> A former Appistry colleague always believed that the self-managing
> & self-organizing behaviors of our product were the beginning of SkyNet.
> If we as a group can define these three laws, I will try to get the
> implementation of them onto our product roadmap.
> :-)
> Sam
> On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Khazret Sapenov <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In my opinion at this stage it would be useful to formulate"3 laws of Cloud Computing"
> borrowed from Isaac Asimov and adapted to botnet facilities:
> 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
> 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
> 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
> more athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics > On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Reuven Cohen <r...@enomaly.com>
> wrote:
> For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been
> private subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and
> often secret networks were typically formed as decentralized groups of
> people engaged in the sharing of information, computing resources and
> communications typically for illegal activities.
> Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the darknet
> ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
> well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information
> sharing, bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All
> of these activities are pointing to a growing interest in the form of
> covert computing I call "dark cloud computing" whereby a private
> computing alliance is formed. In this alliance members are able to
> pool together computing resources to address the ever expanding need
> for capacity.
> According to my favorite source of quick disinformation, The term
> Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which
> were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet) for
> security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
> ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists
> and would not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term
> has been associated with the use of dark fiber networks, private file
> sharing networks and distributed criminal botnets.
> The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of choice for governments
> around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson III. staff
> judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
> Reconnaissance Agency, writes in Armed Forces Journal for the need of
> botnets within the US DoD. In his report he writes " The world has
> abandoned a fortress mentality in the real world, and we need to move
> beyond it in cyberspace. America
> needs a network that can project
> power by building an af.mil robot
> network (botnet) that can direct
> such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no
> longer communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than
> hunks of metal and plastic. America
> needs the ability to carpet bomb
> in cyberspace to create the deterrent we lack."
> I highly doubt the US
> is alone in this thinking. The world is more
> then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just limited
> to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
> driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental
> organization has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are
> quickly realizing they need the same network protections. By covertly
> pooling resources in the form of a dark cloud or cloud alliance,
> members are able to counter or block network threats in a private,
> anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed network
> environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system.
> An anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of
> decentralized nodes capable of neutralizing potential threats through
> a series of counter measures.
author makes a conclusion, that machines "rather than killing, they actually have to keep us around, because there are problems that we can solve, that they cannot yet solve." KS
> author makes a conclusion, that machines > "rather than killing, they actually have to keep us around, > because there are problems that we can solve, that they cannot yet solve." > KS
Yes, that is very interesting. After reading it, it occurred to me that there's a free rider in there somewhere. Someone along the way isn't bearing their fully loaded costs. I've got a hunch that the hosting providers are subsidizing a large part of this, which explains why that part of the business is really hard to compete (see the Rackspace IPO thread <http://groups.google.com/group/cloud-computing/browse_thread/thread/962 25c0054fca9dc> ...).
As for the free rider, I think it's me! For me, putting a server out at Rackspace, Serverbeach, etc. is a no brainer. Someone can make money at those rates, but it isn't me.
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Barr, Bill Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 1:25 PM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Expensive, Cheap Servers
Brenda Michelson summarizes an interesting article where a researcher found that the real cost of that $2500 server runs about $8K-15K.
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Barr, Bill <Bill.B...@tectura.com> wrote: > Brenda Michelson summarizes an interesting article where a researcher > found that the real cost of that $2500 server runs about $8K-15K.
Cheap servers don't cost $2,500. They cost about $1,200 in quantity one (4 cores, 4GB ECC, 2x Gigabit ports, 1U height, 4 hot swap SATA slot, 1 disk).
Second, 10,000 servers (2005 estimate) time times $8.3K to $15.4K yields a national total of $830B to $1.54T in cost. That does seem a little over the top.
Third, most of his costs are per acre (the power and cooling, non-trivial, is still minor) and for manpower, not for hardware. This suggests that using cheap 1U servers is cheaper than more expensive 2U or 4U servers.
Fourth, if the cloud were organized as applications straddling servers rather than inefficient single virtual server instances, the issue would be aggregate computing power rather the speed of individual machines, obsolescence would no longer be an issue and servers would have a much longer economic lifetime.
Fifth, running applications in an well architected multi-server application platform centralizes security and administration policy rather than distributing it to thousands of individual virtual machine instances, reducing the manpower costs.
The ranking of costs is probably something like this:
1. Personal 2. Real estate and environment 3. Power and cooling 4. Capital cost of hardware
The place to start looking for savings is at the top, not the bottom. The cloud model of vast number of virtual machine instances requires a vast number of administrators. The cloud model of arbitrarily large application platforms provides the opportunity to cut real costs. I'm sorry that so many people are eager to define it out of existence.
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:30 AM, Jim Starkey <jstar...@nimbusdb.com> wrote: > ... > ... > Fourth, if the cloud were organized as applications straddling servers > rather than inefficient single virtual server instances, the issue would be > aggregate computing power rather the speed of individual machines, > obsolescence would no longer be an issue and servers would have a much > longer economic lifetime.
> Fifth, running applications in an well architected multi-server application > platform centralizes security and administration policy rather than > distributing it to thousands of individual virtual machine instances, > reducing the manpower costs.
> The ranking of costs is probably something like this:
> 1. Personal > 2. Real estate and environment > 3. Power and cooling > 4. Capital cost of hardware
> The place to start looking for savings is at the top, not the bottom. The > cloud model of vast number of virtual machine instances requires a vast > number of administrators. The cloud model of arbitrarily large application > platforms provides the opportunity to cut real costs. I'm sorry that so > many people are eager to define it out of existence.
I agree, that having application platform would be more compact, however this scenario is rare for hosting providers.
Applications need some level of isolation, provided by virtual containers, even in enterprise (you don't want people from department A get access to applications of department B, even a chance to poke a memory segment or observe network traffic).
Virtualization also doesn't require modification of the code and allow wider range of applications to run (I would estimate all spectre might run without problems).
If everyone decoupled storage from compute, placed the cheap servers in
a rack sized chassis and called it a "processor array"; then the lower
cost 1U solution would truly be lower cost. Smaller compute units are
more readily recycled / reused and have the benefit of using smaller
power supplies which enables energy to be fully switched off when the
compute is not in use. Also... based on what I have learned, the energy
required to cool a 1U is typically higher than a 2/4U due to the smaller
fans running at a higher RPM. The "processor array" model eliminates
this problem (how depends upon the vendor implementation). Cooling is
only part of the problem though... hence the Processor Array concept in
full.
Attached PPT describes a "processor array".... which is more efficient
and manageable than rack mount or blade chassis's in enterprise class
data centers. Processor Array's are the silver lining for clouds and
fabric computing environments. If you agree, tell your vendor. If you
disagree, then reply why... and let's discuss.
Regards,
Jacob
________________________________
From: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
[mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Khazret Sapenov
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 8:41 PM
To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Expensive, Cheap Servers
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Barr, Bill <Bill.B...@tectura.com>
wrote:
Brenda Michelson summarizes an interesting article where a researcher
found that the real cost of that $2500 server runs about $8K-15K.
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:30 AM, Jim Starkey <jstar...@nimbusdb.com > <mailto:jstar...@nimbusdb.com>> wrote:
> ... > ... > Fourth, if the cloud were organized as applications straddling > servers rather than inefficient single virtual server instances, > the issue would be aggregate computing power rather the speed of > individual machines, obsolescence would no longer be an issue and > servers would have a much longer economic lifetime.
> Fifth, running applications in an well architected multi-server > application platform centralizes security and administration > policy rather than distributing it to thousands of individual > virtual machine instances, reducing the manpower costs.
> The ranking of costs is probably something like this:
> 1. Personal > 2. Real estate and environment > 3. Power and cooling > 4. Capital cost of hardware
> The place to start looking for savings is at the top, not the > bottom. The cloud model of vast number of virtual machine > instances requires a vast number of administrators. The cloud > model of arbitrarily large application platforms provides the > opportunity to cut real costs. I'm sorry that so many people are > eager to define it out of existence.
> I agree, that having application platform would be more compact, > however this scenario is rare for hosting providers.
Yup, the technology is evolving. Google is certain the pioneer, but there are lots of other people working on this. There is no doubt in my mind that this is where the industry has to and will go.
> Applications need some level of isolation, provided by virtual > containers, even in enterprise (you don't want people from department > A get access to applications of department B, even a chance to poke a > memory segment or observe network traffic).
Absolutely. Applications have to live in a managed sandbox. This has been known and understood for well over a decade. But that's the easy part of the problem. Shared consistent data across the cloud is the hard part. Appropriate database service is one solution, but there's no agreement on what that means yet.
A virtual machine is nothing more than a huge inefficient sandbox with an operating system and a hundred separate components, each of which requires administration and maintenance. We can do better than this.
> Virtualization also doesn't require modification of the code and allow > wider range of applications to run (I would estimate all spectre might > run without problems).
Sorry, but trying to preserve a dated investment is the best way to die during a platform shift. Effect use of a cloud requires a different programming paradigm, just like GUIs require a different programming paradigm than command line. The guys who tried to salvage their command line based technologies just up and died. The cloud will be the same. Pretending that the rules haven't changed is planning for extinction.
Running virtual machines in a cloud is the same as running DOS shells on Windows. Many people argued that a DOS shell was a window, but a GUI of another type, but those people aren't around anymore...
Applications do require a level of isolation, but that does imply a virtual container. Virtual containers are ideal for hosting existing applications that were not designed for the cloud. They provide an excellent stop-gap measure as Amazon and others are taking advantage of. What needs to happen now, is that we need to start providing toolkits and best practices for developing cloud-based applications. Current virtual containers have an extremely high overhead. Often they take up more memory, disk space, CPU, etc., than the applications they host. We need new lightweight containers that will host applications designed for cloud computing, with minimal overhead, yet the necessary level of isolation.
-Chris
From: Khazret Sapenov [mailto:sape...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:38 AM To: cloud-computing@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Expensive, Cheap Servers
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 8:30 AM, Jim Starkey <jstar...@nimbusdb.com> wrote:
...
... Fourth, if the cloud were organized as applications straddling servers rather than inefficient single virtual server instances, the issue would be aggregate computing power rather the speed of individual machines, obsolescence would no longer be an issue and servers would have a much longer economic lifetime.
Fifth, running applications in an well architected multi-server application platform centralizes security and administration policy rather than distributing it to thousands of individual virtual machine instances, reducing the manpower costs.
The ranking of costs is probably something like this:
1. Personal 2. Real estate and environment 3. Power and cooling 4. Capital cost of hardware
The place to start looking for savings is at the top, not the bottom. The cloud model of vast number of virtual machine instances requires a vast number of administrators. The cloud model of arbitrarily large application platforms provides the opportunity to cut real costs. I'm sorry that so many people are eager to define it out of existence.
I agree, that having application platform would be more compact, however this scenario is rare for hosting providers.
Applications need some level of isolation, provided by virtual containers, even in enterprise (you don't want people from department A get access to applications of department B, even a chance to poke a memory segment or observe network traffic).
Virtualization also doesn't require modification of the code and allow wider range of applications to run (I would estimate all spectre might run without problems).
On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Jim Starkey <jstar...@nimbusdb.com> wrote: > ... > > Applications need some level of isolation, provided by virtual > > containers, even in enterprise (you don't want people from department > > A get access to applications of department B, even a chance to poke a > > memory segment or observe network traffic). > Absolutely. Applications have to live in a managed sandbox. This has > been known and understood for well over a decade. But that's the easy > part of the problem. Shared consistent data across the cloud is the > hard part. Appropriate database service is one solution, but there's no > agreement on what that means yet.
> A virtual machine is nothing more than a huge inefficient sandbox with > an operating system and a hundred separate components, each of which > requires administration and maintenance. We can do better than this.
These statements are all true, but only within very narrow range of platfrom/applications. Google AppEngine ignores existing Java, C++ and other applications. Companies have spent oodles of money in their software, that became woven into business processes. It is not practical to rewrite everything (do it cloud-aware) for the sake of getting another 20% boost in application performance with other drawbacks (security etc).
> > Virtualization also doesn't require modification of the code and allow > > wider range of applications to run (I would estimate all spectre might > > run without problems). > Sorry, but trying to preserve a dated investment is the best way to die > during a platform shift. Effect use of a cloud requires a different > programming paradigm, just like GUIs require a different programming > paradigm than command line. The guys who tried to salvage their command > line based technologies just up and died. The cloud will be the same. > Pretending that the rules haven't changed is planning for extinction.
> Running virtual machines in a cloud is the same as running DOS shells on > Windows. Many people argued that a DOS shell was a window, but a GUI > of another type, but those people aren't around anymore...
I understand, that there are other (than virtual machine instances), more efficient technologies, but at the moment there's no viable alternative to it(commercially available), that might satisfy majority of customers. Thus discussions of more tight secure application container are rather hypothetical. Correct me, if I'm wrong.
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