Gridspot
Infrastructure
distributed cloud compute
SHOW HN2012
266points
144comments
#50of 1,677 in 2012
Top 3%of 2012 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
8 positive, 46 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 40 critical, out of 97 comments about the project. Thread score -0.33.
Privacy: 0 for, 11 againstExecution: 2 for, 9 againstIdea: 4 for, 6 againstPricing: 1 for, 4 againstDocs: 0 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Cheap instances work well; a commenter got a VM in under a minute with no credit card.
From 1 comment
This seems too good to be true, but it's working great for me! With no credit card, I got an instance with 3 GB RAM running in less than 60 seconds. It costs $0.002 per hour. One…
panarky on HN
Distributed model that could fix elastic compute.
From 2 comments
This is great - it looks to have some very sensible answers to many of the questions of how a distributed cloud would work. The thing that excites me most about a distributed…
justinsb on HNMy immediate response was "surely this is less than the cost of the electricity to run the CPUs" but it turns out it's equal to the marginal cost of heating a room with CPUs…
podperson on HN
Objections
Contributors have little reason to donate their machines.
From 3 comments
From [1] - "Our users volunteer their idle compute resources because they want to be part of something valuable to the world. We believe that this is a motivator far more…
soupboy on HNI don't get this. People install their program, contribute the power of their computers for free and Gridspot takes money. Why would anyone do this? Why would anyone contribute…
runn1ng on HNWhy would people contribute? You're basically profiting off donated energy. I doubt that's a sustainable model.
Xorlev on HN
Privacy and security concerns: traffic proxied, VMs on untrusted hardware.
From 3 comments
This would be perfect for crawling with a large number of distinct IP addresses, or for fighting DDOS attacks. However: "All network traffic is proxied through a central data…
panarky on HNIf VMs are running on hardware Gridspot doesn't control, and if the filesystem isn't encrypted, how is my data secured? At $0.002 per hour I'm actually OK with zero security, but…
panarky on HNHow do they handle security? If the software they're using to virtualize these instances is exploitable, then you could break into the host machine and do whatever you like with…
lost-theory on HN
Electricity costs exceed what the CPU sells for.
From 1 comment
"Thus, we decided to only run computations when the outdoor temperature near the user is below a certain level (currently 16 degrees Celcius). When it's that cold outside, we…
uvdiv on HN
Company and team identity is not disclosed.
From 2 comments
From https://gridspot.com/privacy > We have designed the Gridspot Software... Sorry if i missed but : Who are you ? Please put some information about "yourself" somewhere on your…
devmach on HNI can't believe anyone would install their software without having any idea who this guy is.
defilade on HN
Requests
Add payment options other than credit card.
From 2 comments
So, the only payment option is via credit-card.. And if you have no credit card what then? Am I S.O.L?
rasur on HNFacilities management is the worst part of "cloud" services. Getting this outsourced for low/no cost is brilliant. Check out the OnAPP CDN implementation. Please provide a…
donavanm on HN
Standard VM images and better docs.
From 3 comments
Facilities management is the worst part of "cloud" services. Getting this outsourced for low/no cost is brilliant. Check out the OnAPP CDN implementation. Please provide a…
donavanm on HNSo, how would one contribute to this?
pavel_lishin on HNWhat kind of tools are on the VM ? Do I get gcc and some python installation, for example ? I would imagine that I would have to reinstall my tools whenever a new instance starts.
gyom on HN
Fix the bugs in the UI and API.
From 3 comments
This seems too good to be true, but it's working great for me! With no credit card, I got an instance with 3 GB RAM running in less than 60 seconds. It costs $0.002 per hour. One…
panarky on HNAnother possible bug is that the UI reports 1.56 core-hours used, but my single-core instance has only been running 24 minutes.
panarky on HNHow embarrassing (but fixed now). That was introduced when I added the ability to boot five instances without a credit card. Thanks for letting me know!
adamsmith on HN
Questions
How do you get 100k contributing machines without public awareness?
From 3 comments
Wow, really, six figures? 250 results for "gridspot.com" on google, and yet you have 100000+ computers running this software? I want to hire you! I'll pay you 10 figures/month!
vld on HNThis comment is quite rude, but I still haven't seen an answer for this yet. How did you get all these users to donate their computers even though nobody seems to have heard of…
KaoruAoiShiho on HNI can think of precisely zero ethical ways you could already have more than 100k machines participating. An explanation from you would be very, very nice to see.
davidmr on HN
Is the software bundled or installed without consent?
From 2 comments
Your "giving back" paragraph about what motivates your users is completely dishonest. You know your users are clueless and installed your client because it was bundled with an…
hhjj on HNGoogle also has this link as the #1 link ... well for me anyways. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120329124823AAT62kg It does in bring into question whether or not…
sdesol on HN
What happens when a contributor disconnects?
From 1 comment
What happens when the contributor abruptly cuts out?
jasonzemos on HN
Alternatives named
BOINC
From 1 comment
so this is basically BOINC but also allows for-profit/non-research companies to tap its resources
stephen272 on HN
Popular Power
From 1 comment
Yay, trying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Power again.
spullara on HN
Amazon EC2
From 2 comments
Are you guys using EC2 like Engineyard? Edit: I just checked the ip 107.20.186.94, and it does look like it's hosted on Amazon.
mmsear on HNFake it till you make it? I don't know for sure, but could they be subsidising the launch by running instances on EC2? ... When they get enough hosts signed up, switch over to…
damian2000 on HN