Intel, HP, Yahoo Announce Joint Project for Cloud Computing Research

The speculations about what HP, Intel and Yahoo are supposed to announce this morning started after a post on Techcrunch yesterday inviting the readers to guess what the announcement will be. It was obvious that it will be some research initiative for processing of large volumes of information but of course we could only guess.

Now we have the clarity - the three giants will be working on a joint initiative to research the potential of cloud computing. The project involves use of six data centers (from 1,000 to 4,000 processor cores in each running on HP servers) that will be made available for pre-selected researchers to test applications in the cloud environment at internet scale. Each of the three companies will host one data center and the remaining three data centers will be hosted by three participating research centers - Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, the University of Illinois, and the Steinbuch Centre for Computing in Germany.

The data centers will serve as the test bed for research of cloud computing potential and challenges. The major goal for the project is not only to find new applications for cloud computing but to study how such large-scale processing of information can be made reliable and secure. It is important that the initiative will not focus on software issues only - it is also intended to research hardware-related issues. Right now it is very interesting to know who exactly will get access to this advanced environment by the end of the year when the data centers are fully operational.

One thing I personally want to point out is that we have seen too many web applications fail recently because of their inability to scale properly. If this initiative proves to work efficiently and will enable developers to test their applications in the cloud environment at internet scale, it will really mean a significant advancement in how web applications are developed, tested and launched. And I think it is very good to see the three giants willing to invest their money and resources in a research project like this one - even if their final goal may be as simple as increased sales of hardware.