Cloud Computing and Biological Systems

If you haven’t heard the term “cloud computing” already, then you’re missing out on the next big trend in computation.  Cloud computing is essentially web-based software and services delivered by a third party on the Internet (“the cloud”). The beauty of cloud computing is the massive scale that can be achieved by literally having thousands of computers in a data center, any number of them at your disposal, running web applications on demand without you having to know anything about the physical location or configuration of those computers. In other words, the cloud is the “machine.” But exactly how is this accomplished, and how might this relate to biological systems?

A cloud-based data center provides a shared pool of computers all networked together, very similar to cells in a biological organism.  All of these computers are identical, yet can take on any number of different tasks (or applications), just as the cells in biological organisms can take on various applications (such as being an eye cell, a brain cell, or a skin cell, but in this case they become committed to a specific task based on what specific genes have been “configured” to express themselves).  Cloud computers can work on applications autonomously, but can also work in conjunction with other computers, similar to organ systems in complex biological organisms.

In cloud-based systems, there are controllers at various hierarchical levels directing various computer tasks, which are also responsible for monitoring the health of both software programs and hardware. When a problem is found, a controller can shut down software programs or hardware, and divert the work to other computers.  In a similar manner, biological organisms have cellular “monitors” that can detect when a cell is damaged or has died, scavenge the cell, and shift the load to new cells that have just come “online.” By analogy, imagine a forklift operator in a data center removing a damaged bank of computers, replacing it with a fresh new bank.

So we can see how cloud-computing architects, as intelligent agents, and without any particular intention of doing so, mimic cellular processes in certain ways to produce high-scale computational applications.  Yet with all of the intelligence and complexity built into cloud computing, it pales in comparison to the complexity of the miniature machines that make up the workings of the simplest living cell.