August 17, 2005 - (HOSTSEARCH.COM) - The University of Alberta is currently engaged in the recreation of a common bacteria, E. coli, down to the very last molecule in a virtual setting. Scientists hope to be able to come to a deeper understanding of the way living things work by being able to model them in different scenarios using computers.
Meanwhile on a grander scale, Japan’s Earth Simulator computer which is one of the worlds fastest supercomputers at 35.9 teraflops per second is being used for modeling the Earth and it’s climate.
Computer modeling is also coming to the fore in the areas of drug testing and genetic engineering.
What does this all mean for the web hosting industry? As computers and Internet connection speeds get faster and faster and software grows ever more powerful there will soon be no need for the ubiquitous under $10 shared hosting plan.
As masses of datacenters are virtually emptied by linking their servers’ processing power these processing wastelands may be able to save themselves by moving from low cost web hosting to high end data modeling.
While 35.9 teraflops may be a little outside the range of even the most impressive data center’s combined processing power not every host can expect to be able to model the entire Earth. Just as the lowly E. Coli has offered a treasure trove of information to researchers into genetics it may offer web hosts a niche in the future by which they can evolve and stay alive.
