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Excerpt:
Cloud Computing and How it Applies to Second Life
What is a “cloud”, and just what is it computing?
Wikipedia has this to say on the matter:
“Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like a public utility”
For example, Amazon.com offers a prominent web hosting service knows as EC2. EC2 allows paying clients to rent hosting on Amazon’s “cloud.” The software EC2 is hosting for its clients isn’t being run on any one computer in particular. Instead, whatever is being hosted by EC2 (a website, or what have you) is run on a virtual machine, backed by bucket loads of server computers being maintained by Amazon.
I know, now you’re asking “What the heck is a virtual machine?” A virtual machine is basically a software program meant to mimic a full-blown computer. So, interaction with EC2 would be a simulation of working with a single computer. You would even be able to think of this virtual machine interface as the one computer at Amazon that is personally hosting all of your files. But this is a mirage, and behind the scenes everything is made up of a virtual sea of computation.
So there you have it, the cloud, a metaphorical method of providing different services over the Internet. When people say a web service is “on the cloud”, what they really mean is there is a group of servers on the Internet, running whatever software solution that service is providing. There is no one cloud, there are many. The semantic distinction here isn’t really being made over where these computers/servers are located, who owns them or what they’re doing, in as far as how they’re configured and being utilized.
To some people, the Second Life main grid sounds like it could be a cloud, but, personally, I wouldn’t consider it that way. The main reason being that each SIM is dedicated to a specific server core, with a specific allotment of RAM (etc…), and that’s it. The grid’s severs can’t say to themselves “Oh, well, there is less traffic on these SIMs over in this region, so let’s throw some of their resources at these other, crowded SIMs over here. A SIM’s resources are static, and the main grid isn’t just a blob of computing power ready to mold itself to different computing situations. Thus answers the age old question: If a tree falls in Second Life, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? The answer: a big ol’ YES. It would be fantastic if this weren’t the case, but I’m no expert on the ins and outs of the main grid’s design, and I’m sure there are a number of reasons why things are the way they are.
Second Life Enterprise, however, is a different situation. Recently, Joe Linden was quoted saying: “…standing up a Second Life grid in the cloud is something that we already do; we have customers running instances of Second Life Enterprise in the cloud, and no dedicated hardware is required to stand up a private grid.”
Normally, Second Life Enterprise is meant to be a sort of mini-grid, out of the box, for companies to utilize within their own, local communications network. A corporation would be provided the necessary hardware and software needed to integrate a Second Life Enterprise solution within their existing IT network. It would then work alongside the standard office network offerings, such as email or intra-net FTP, all behind the company’s Internet firewall.
What I think Joe Linden was referring to was the doings of a few Second Life Enterprise clients. Some companies don’t have a basement full of equipment dedicated to IT, or the resources to justify upgrading their office’s internal IT infrastructure to handle the hardware elements of Second Life Enterprise. I mean, in this day and age, a smaller business’ IT setup could feasibly consist of a broadband connection and a wireless router. So, in some cases, it may be more cost effective to have the server side elements of Second Life Enterprise hosted on rented server space (the “cloud”). I didn’t know Linden Lab was allowing that, but hey, sounds pretty cool to me....
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