At the end of the previous century we saw Remote Storage and Management of Information Technology (IT) resources and applications as one of the solutions coming to the fore. The idea was to ensure the management of an organization’s IT or Application remotely while freeing up the organization to focus on its core activities as also saving cost. This further gained popularity with a robust Business Intelligence (BI) solutions being able to look at the organization’s customer data and coming up with meaningful actions for customer engagement.
The turn of the century saw this customer focus growing even more with Remote Storage no more being a passive element which could only be accessed from the computer from our office but an active information dissemination point which could be accessed from any device from any location. That effectively brought forth the era of Cloud Computing.
The solutions under Cloud Computing spreads from the management of IT resources to providing applications on a pay-per-use basis. The idea is for the cloud to hold multiple organization’s information at one point and use the advantage of physical resource sharing to bring down cost.
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, Cloud took a whole new meaning. It no longer was just the provider of storage and access point for data, it could actually process data. Let’s take an example, in the case of facial recognition, the video installed at different points is actually collecting tons of information every second and processing it. Only on processing can the identity of the person be established. Can you imagine the scenario when ten or hundred people walk at the same time across a video? Well, the data generated will fill tons of servers in no time and the power required to process the data to get real time information will be even more.
By the way, this is not just an example but something that China has done in one of its cities. Take a look at the video below:
The video is just to show the extent to which artificial intelligence can help – from fighting crime to identifying what best a customer wants. It is all encompassing.
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Yes, all’s well for sure, however, the current market scenario and the expected growth are something which keeps everyone thinking if not worrying. So, what are we talking about?
We saw that Cloud Computing today offers both Storage space as much as Data Processing Power but this is an area which is served by companies who are heavily invested in Cloud. The companies we are talking about is Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and IBM, who have their own needs which helped them identify this space that could help other large companies too. But the cost of such services may be too high for an SME or an Individual to tap into. In other words, only those with deep pockets can avail of the services. This also limits innovation to only a few companies. Small companies may have great ideas but it may not be able to put those ideas into effect because of cost considerations.
Besides, the fact is that Cloud Services will continue to grow and Artificial Intelligence led Cloud Service even more. As per Gartner, the public cloud services market is expected to grow by 21.4% in 2018 to USD 186.4 billion. The growth will be further compounded by the advent of Artificial Intelligence. According to the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) Chairman, Bernie Trudel, currently AI accounts for only 1% of global cloud computing market. However, AI is expected to grow at 52% year on year and reach 10% of global cloud computing market by 2025.
The more important point though is that, for Artificial Intelligence to grow as a market, it needs Cloud Computing as its base – both for Data Storage and Data Processing.
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The 21st century witnessed the advent of another innovative technology through the launch of Bitcoin. Readers must have guessed that we are talking about Blockchain and that appears to be a simple yet effective solution to create decentralized storage and processing power. But it is easier said than done unless someone has given it a thorough thought.
Appears that someone indeed has and in fact, already is in the market with their solution. We are talking about IAGON.
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“IAGON is an Open Source platform for harnessing the storage capacities and processing power of multiple computers over a decentralized Blockchain grid."
The concept in simpler words attempts to use the unused capacities of individuals, data centers or corporates and incentivize them to share their unused storage and processing power. This, in turn, can be bought by individuals requiring such storage or processing power.
Take a look at the video explaining IAGON a bit more in detail:
The assimilation of unused storage space and computing power added to the pool by users and businesses alike, can help generate a super-computer, more powerful than any other super-computer yet accessible to all for their own processing needs. It will also be a super-data center allowing the needs of Big Data users to access such a blockchain grid.
The best part of the solution is that it completely bypasses the need for upfront capital investment which a new player would have found difficult to do. Because of the blockchain grid, IAGON will be working as an equal in the cloud computing market and in many cases serving even the needs of the big players and data centers.
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IAGON’s token-based system will allow owners of storage and processing power to join the network and get paid in IAGON tokens for sharing their space and CPU and GPU power. These IAGON tokens can be traded back for FIAT. The subscribers or users in need can access this storage or power by distributing IAGON tokens to owners. This creates a self-fulfilling economy based on demand and supply.
Not only that but contributors to the grid can also publish their skill levels which a user can buy based on bids. The platform itself will be AI enabled which not only suggests prices to parties interested in buying the service but also suggesting who would be the right contributor. The same platform is also capable of identifying bad actors and removing them from the grid.
Over a period of time, as the demand for IAGONs services for data storage and data processing increases, the demand for IAGON token will also increase and thereby, improve its rate vis-à-vis dollar. In other words, all users further benefit from holding and using IAGON token.
Best of all, from its inception due to the shared basis of the resources, IAGON will be able to offer both data storage and data processing services at a fraction of the current cost by the big players.
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While so far, we have been saying that IAGON’s solution can assist in Artificial Intelligence solutions in the future, the best part is that IAGON itself uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Algorithms to manage and run the grid. It does make sense considering the billions of transactions that can be expected to run on the platform in the future and the very fact that it would be unmanageable by just hard-coded programming.
IAGON’s grid functions much like a Power Grid
The AI tracker is the brain behind IAGON’s Smart Computing Grid. It is the one which will learn through the network and identify storage spaces where sliced data can be optimally stored as much as identify idle GPU and CPU space and allocate processing work to such nodes. As the AI tracker learns if an allocated task is completed optimally and without an act of wrong-doing, it will allocate more such work to the same node for better response. At the same time, bad actors or rogue nodes are identified and removed from the grid.
Take a look at the IAGON Platform Architecture below:
Besides, IAGON can also integrate with current IT infrastructures of businesses without causing much disruption or issues. It can act as a middleware between the server and database and front-end back-end systems. It can work with SQL and NoSQL database structures. Because of the AI – Tracker it provides an additional layer of security by identifying if a request is from an honest node or rogue node.
IAGON can also work between Private and Public blockchain networks, a possibility considering the participants in the IAGON grid can come from any network. The Machine Learning Algorithm allows IAGON to store data securely across platforms.
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AI and Big Data were the two major developments of the 21st century which will be impacted by IAGON in a positive way. Until IAGON came by both were resource intensive and cost prohibitive. Databases were also open to vicious attacks by hackers and due to the Data Lake Architecture, it was possible for them to swim in the database system. This meant that the organization’s or its customers' information could be stolen and misused. A recent and infamous case was of Equifax where more than 140 million customer data was stolen.
Enter IAGON and the equation changes almost immediately. We already saw that because of IAGON’s platform architecture and core principles of operation, the cost of operation reduces and the resources are virtually infinite. So, while AI will still remain resource intensive it need not require purchasing hardware to run the operation. IAGON’s grid will make the right resources in the required measure available on demand.
On the Big Data front, since IAGON’s AI – Tracker slices images and data and stores at multiple locations or nodes in encrypted form, it is virtually impossible for a bad actor to gain access to all the stored data, leave alone putting it together. This in effect builds a freezing the lake solution, which means that any rogue actor on gaining access to the grid can not do much in navigating through the information. Therefore, the security aspect pertaining to Data Lake Architecture is also handled effectively.
Here are some of the early adopters of IAGON
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At an individual level, certainly yes. My computer is ON for nearly sixteen hours in a day and mostly the time spent on it is on Microsoft Word and Excel. In certain scenarios, there would be a need for graphics related work but mostly once a week.
The entire system is idle for 6 hours when I am not using it, albeit, being switched off. Also, I am hardly doing any justice to the Intel i7 8th Generation. Not to mention the storage space of 2 TB out of which only 160 GB is used so far. The potential to share on IAGON grid is absolutely mind-boggling and the prospect of earning by just sharing my unused infrastructure is awesome.
So, in a nut shell I sure stand to benefit. I would suggest that readers do a self-assessment of their own usage of their systems and see if they can connect up with the IAGON grid.
All the best!
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IAGON appears to be a well-thought-out, easy to understand and easy to deploy solution. AI and Big Data are no doubt going to benefit from IAGON but it is not difficult to see that there will be additional impact.
So, the possibilities from here are endless. Let’s see how things pan out!
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It is also recommended that readers understand more about IAGON through any of the following informative resources.
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This article is written in response to originalworks’ call on authors’ thoughts on IAGON. It can be read here.
Image Courtesy: Pixabay and IAGON Resources
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