The people's cloud

Peer-to-peer cloud computing could free us from the tyranny of data centers. With the right software, geographically distributed hardware can provide a unified cloud-computing resource. Some cloud-computing providers put all their hardware eggs in one datacenter basket [blue]. Others employ multiple data centers networked together [orange]. The logical extension is a peer-to-peer cloud made of individual computers [yellow].The computers in some P2P networks resemble gossiping office workers. Gossip-based protocols allow information to flow reliably, even if some computers leave the system and break previously established links [orange lines]. Gossip-based protocols are used to maintain an unstructured peer-to-peer network of individual computers, some of which do the work of one customer [orange] while other combinations serve different customers [blue and yellow].