Grid Meter » DVR Grid

March 31, 2006 | Comments: (0)

DVR Grid

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It's been a while since I collided my favorite subjects of Grid computing and embedded systems in consumer devices, but this Reuters article made it all bubble to the top again.

Cable TV provider, Cablevision has a plan to offer a digital video recording service that can replace DVR boxes. The key word here is service, as in lieu of a piece of dedicated hardware.

This new service will allow cable TV subscribers to record programs on Cablevision Systems' network servers, instead of on hard disk based video recorder set top boxes.

The primary motivation for offering this as a service is to cut the costs of deployment and maintenance of physical resources in widely distributed locations.

All that sound familiar?

I've long said that the largest collection of distributed computational resources, on a per seat basis are the digital set top boxes of the big cable companies. Granted the seats are rather anemic when compared to the number crunchers and disk farms we usually mention in the same breath as Grid, however, the network is one that lives under the auspices of a single entity which makes deployment concerns and security issues much more manageable.

Management of distributed data as the foundation for a virtualized application. If it quacks like a duck it might just be a duck ...

Posted by Greg Nawrocki on March 31, 2006 11:55 AM

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