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SETI@Home does it. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence uses radio telescopes to listen for radio signals from space that would indicate the signals were generated by an intelligent creature. It takes a lot of supercomputing processing power to analyze the noise they gather. Their solution in 1999 was to network home computers to help provide the processing power. People would contribute their computer's processing ability during those times they were not using it (e.g., like bedtime, 5 AM - noon for some of us). The SETI initiative uses your computer and others during that downtime. It marshals the work to computers around the world to process the radio signals. Those computers return the results to the central computer, which then sends another round of commands back to the home computers. Although this project has not uncovered definitive proof of ET intelligence, this model has helped drive the way to greener computing.
The trend to virtualization is swinging back to the mainframe/dumb terminal model. Our personal computers usually run at idle more than 70% of the time. They really only take up a lot of processing power when you turn your computer on or off, open or close applications, or save a lot of data at once. What if several of us shared the same host computer? Since most of our computer's time is idle, waiting for us to do something, several people could be using that wait time to get some of their work done.
By having several people sharing the same computer, the host computer's idle time drops. It's time is better spent doing what it was designed to do: process calculations. Overall power consumption drops accordingly, as does the manufacturing and disposal costs of the computer's raw materials.
Cloud computing service companies provide additional benefits to going it alone on your own PC. These companies provide backups of your data, so if any disaster happens, you would have the opportunity to roll back to a previously known operating version of your system, with minimal loss to your files. Road warriors will have access to their files anywhere there is an Internet connection. When you upgrade to your next computer, you can consider a smaller, cheaper model with fewer high-performance add-ons.
Some hosts that are providing remote access to shared computing services, also known as cloud computing include:
ShoreShot! Web Design lists these websites to assist you in your research of environmentally friendly computing, and does not necessarily indicate an endorsement of any of these services.
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When Green Clouds Are a Good Thing
