Popular Power builds on distributed home computing network systemSan Jose 15 January 2001 Popular Power has designed a flexible software platform based on BEA WebLogic Serve that takes large processing jobs and distributes them in smaller batches across vast numbers of PCs owned by organisations and individuals - using the otherwise untapped processing power of idle CPU-cycles and bandwidth to complete each computational task. The data is then sent back to BEA WebLogic Server and is then aggregated and analyzed.
Anyone with an Internet connection can participate by downloading Popular Power
software. The software client activates when a
member's computer is idle. It then contacts Popular Power's central BEA WebLogic
Server hub and is sent a small part of a larger processing or network job. Each
of the participating computers executes its task and then returns the results to
the centralised server for aggregation and analysis. Popular Power's platform
can be spread across hundreds of thousands of computers connected over the
Internet to provide data analysis and other computing capabilities that far
exceed that of a single mainframe or supercomputer, including the largest UNIX
servers.
This computing structure is exceptionally well-suited for businesses and
scientists with projects requiring intensive data analysis. One prime example is
Popular Power's first non-profit research project that uses a computer model of
the human immune system to help better understand and improve influenza
vaccines. Using simulations that run on participating computers, the model is
"injected" with different vaccines in order to test their efficacy against
various strains of the flu. The goal of the project is to help develop better
strategies for selecting the influenza vaccine, which must change every year as
the influenza virus mutates. Since the project launched in April 2000, thousands
of participating PCs have completed more than eight million tasks, which
translates to hundreds of years of computing time already donated to the effort.
The research is being conducted in conjunction with Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization scientists responsible for
selecting each year's influenza vaccine.
Ad Emmen |
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