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Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

pluraprocessing.com

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Re: Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

#21

Post by moonpolysoft »

westside1506 wrote: post #19
moonpolysoft wrote: post #16

One of the issues that I see with this approach is that for most applications the scaling issue is data scaling rather than CPU. Here's why I think you will run into scaling issues: Lets assume you have a gigabit line out of your colo. Lets also assume that your average game client is on a cable modem with a 1megabit connection. That gives you capabilities to stream work units to 1024 clients simultaneously as an upp…

Yep, we quite aware of all of these issues. My background is in HPC and my previous company was a successful exit to a major oilfield services firm. My software and its descendants are used on nearly 100,000 CPUs. We are definitely focused on the applications that have extremely high compute/io ratios. In general, these boil down to either high compute problems with no real data or problems where the data can be shar…

So that brings up a good issue, namely the proprietary nature of the code you're distributing. For instance, stock market analysis firms zealously guard their algorithms. Let's say I'm a potential customer: How will you protect my bytecode from being stolen by competitors when it has to be run on unmanaged machines in the wild?

Re: Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

#25

Post by olefoo »

This does strike me as verging on unethical; you (and your affiliates) need to make very clear statements to end users that you will be using their computers to do other processing while they are playing.

That said this is a pretty cool model, and I'm sure that most people would be happy to let a few of their CPU cycles pay for the game they are playing.

Re: Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

#26

Post by bigthboy »

westside1506 wrote: post #12
bigthboy wrote: post #10

I think this is an innovative approach to getting more people involved with grid computing for major computations and a clever way to market it in general. However, I agree with some other people here, there has got to be some sort of licensing issue. As much as the whole "you clicked okay to the TOS, you gave us permission." is a tank in court, it still seems to risky. If nothing else, it would risk users no longer…

Interesting comments. First, let me explain that the client side runs entirely within memory; the hard drive is not touched at all. All processing or computation is done within the Java sandbox. In other words, you are not giving us unfettered access. In fact, it's quite the opposite. :) We follow everything listed at http://java.sun.com/sfaq/ , whether we're running an applet from the browser or from within a deskto…

Nice rebuttal, I wish you the best of luck, it seems like something with a good amount of potential. I especially liked your perspective on because the gaming services do this and you pay them for it, they can implement better features for their own users.

Re: Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

#29

Post by jmatt »

westside1506 wrote: post #2

Hey guys, we just launched our private beta for Plura. I submitted our game page as the HN link, but www.pluraprocessing.com has more general information. Take a look and tell me what you think. We've been paying our alpha affiliates for months now and are ready to take on a much larger pool of affiliates in our beta. "Affiliates" are the people that put Plura on their site, browser game, or other content (even downl…

It seems like there is potential for a much bigger market than games. Streaming video and audio... fantasy sport applets, etc. Is plura just starting with games since they provide what I suspect are ideal conditions (already using CPU and running long enough to for Plura to actually do some work).

Re: Review my startup - Plura Processing: Web Traffic = Grid Computer

#30

Post by randomwalker »

Harkins wrote: post #24

What's with the payment being per-user per-month? Why not just straight per-work unit? Isn't a user who plays the game 20h/m (or at least leaves their browser window open that long) more valuable than the one who only plays for five minutes?

It is in fact per work unit. See the "How it works" page. It's $2.60 per month per concurrent user, which is the same thing.
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