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Enterprise mobility - It’s more than connecting on the go. - SBC-One.com
Enterprise mobility - It’s more than connecting on the go. The new Nortel vision of mobility redefines the possibilities for communication and collaboration in dynamic, distributed enterprises. It’s a surprising but very real statistic: 50 to 70...
Finding Your Voice: Truth-telling in the Workplace
I had to laugh when a friend told me recently that he’d never had trouble finding his shout, but the concept of finding his voice was really new to him. When my laughter subsided I was able to assure him that he’s by far not alone! Dynamic tension...
Home Blessing Magick
A home blessing meditation for charging a room: Sit Straight with palms on lap, take deep breaths, relax, and move into a mental space where you activate your intuitive senses. Imagine a cord of energy from your spine connecting you to the Earth,...
Turing Machines and Universes
In 1936 an American (Alonzo Church) and a Briton (Alan M. Turing) published independently (as is often the coincidence in science) the basics of a new branch in Mathematics (and logic): computability or recursive functions (later to be developed...
VoIP 101: Voice over IP for Beginners
For those who have never heard about the potential of VoIP, be prepared to radically change the way you think about your current long-distance calling plan. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is very simply, a method for taking ordinary analog...
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One Small Step for Man – One Giant Bill from Tech. Support
Beaming data to the moon—it sounds intriguing, but is it really the answer to offsite backup?
Dozens of businesses were unable to recover from 9/11. Having all of their files and backup data in one location added incredible economic damage to the already tragic losses of life. Should businesses anticipate a graver disaster than that of the World Trade Center?
Jumping forward ten, maybe twenty, years...
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal builds to an astounding 50,000 warheads (more than the USSR at the peak of the Cold War), the ozone hole exceeds 15 million square miles, and the war on terror wages on. Nevertheless, it’s business–as–usual back in the good old US of A. Investments grow, as does the price of gasoline and real estate. Cures for would–be–lethal diseases are on the brink of discovery, and space travel is available to anyone willing to pay.
Nobody saw it coming. Or more precisely, no one believed it would really happen. Astronomers warned of the day the asteroid would come. And it does.
Barreling through space at unheard–of speeds, the asteroid, aptly named “the end of days,” smashes against the earth like a 400 billion ton hammer. Hundreds of thousands of lives are lost almost immediately. Dust and ash spread across the sky, and the earth whimpers as if the wind were knocked out of her. Over the coming months, the damage is address by the Red Cross like a troupe of girl scouts servicing the Normandy invasion. The economy is in shambles as consumer confidence falls through the floor...and then the basement.
Out of the smoke comes Dennis Laurie, CEO of TransOrbital. In a speech matched only by Sir Winston Churchill, or maybe even Morgan Freeman, he assures the world that rebuilding the economy is possible. The companies that had invested in TransOrbital by sending their backup data to the moon could fly past their competitors and
reshape the new world. By retrieving data stored safely in space, these companies redefine the Fortune 500 and become the new leaders in the global economy.
Sound a bit hokey? That’s the claim TransOrbital makes in a recent PC Magazine article.
Laurie said, "September 11 caused people to think about what data backup really means, and there is also always the threat of a natural disaster here on earth, such as a small asteroid hitting the planet."
Would it really work—data centers on the moon? The plan is to build server-friendly environments that could provide the “atmosphere” necessary for self-healing servers. Small shelter-like structures that could keep a normal temperature, air pressure, etc. need to be built on the moon; currently, Tran Orbital is the only company with the licensing to do it.
While they’re up there, TransOrbital, using Hewlett-Packard technology, plans to make live digital images of the earth available on the web. They also offer to ship personal objects to the moon for safe-keeping for a small fee of $2500 per gram.
The proposal certainly has its fair share of skeptics. The biggest argument being that the likelihood of an asteroid hitting the earth is miniscule compared to one hitting the moon. Earth’s atmosphere burns up most of the debris that would otherwise hit the surface, while the moon has no such protection. Others wonder about upgrading, repairs, and maintenance. As one reader put it, “At 75$ and hour and 30 cents per mile, that’s one hefty bill from tech support.”
About the Author
Peter McFraser is a marketing representative of Exabyte, located in Boulder, Colorado. Learn more about how you can backup data with Exabyte’s award-winning VXA backup drive.
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