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Monday, October 21, 1996
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[Image] INNOVATION / Steve G. Steinberg
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By Steve G. Steinberg
[Image]AP
BUSINESS ΚΚΚΚΚLast week, I went back to Soda Hall, the
green-tiled architectural monstrosity that houses
INTERNET the computer science department at UC Berkeley.
ACADEMY The building was filled with the same quiet hush
and hurried, unkempt students I remembered from
TIMES PICK when I was a grad student there two years ago,
but the atmosphere was palpably different. There
SPECIAL was the distinct smell of money in the air.
REPORTS ΚΚΚΚΚ Computer science departments, especially
those near Silicon Valley, have always profited
FRONT PAGE from close ties to industry, whether they be
consulting gigs or equipment donations. But with
NATION & the current climate of Internet hysteria, the
WORLD opportunities for computer science professors and
grad students to cash in have never been greater.
STATE &
LOCAL ΚΚΚΚΚ Already, a number of Berkeley grads have
turned their expertise into Web riches, and there
SPORTS is now a subtle pressure on other students to do
the same. "Sometimes I'm almost embarrassed that
BUSINESS & my research doesn't have anything to do with the
TECHNOLOGY Web," one grad student admitted to me. "I have to
remind myself that I didn't come to grad school
LIFE & STYLE to make money."
ΚΚΚΚΚ
CALENDAR ΚΚΚΚΚ This commercial pressure isn't necessarily
a bad thing for the field. Computer science
COMMENTARY departments, after all, have long been criticized
for turning out engineers unprepared for the real
WEEKLY world of deadlines and budgets. On the other
SECTIONS hand, one of the great strengths of academia is
that it gives people the freedom to do far-out,
ORANGE blue-sky research. Losing some of that freedom
COUNTY could harm the pace of innovation.
ΚΚΚΚΚ To see the pros and cons of the growing
SAN FERNANDO blurring between academia and industry, you just
VALLEY need to look at how one research project at
Berkeley--known as Networks of Workstations--has
VENTURA been affected.
COUNTY ΚΚΚΚΚ When I was a grad student at Berkeley, the
NOW project was the central research effort of
the department. The idea was simple: Why not hook
up a bunch of workstations with a fast network,
then have them work together as if they were one
giant supercomputer?
ΚΚΚΚΚ The notion came to be called hive
computing, and it promised a huge advance over
the specialized and expensive supercomputers of
the day. But once the first prototype system was
up and running, the group needed a sample
application to demonstrate convincingly the
capabilities of a NOW.
ΚΚΚΚΚ The application that Eric Brewer, a new
assistant professor, and Paul Gaulthier, a grad
student, dreamed up was a high-speed search
engine for the Web. The search engines of the day
were having a hard time keeping up with the rapid
development of the Internet. Searching 40 million
Web pages to find the official Thomas Pynchon
site required more computational horsepower than
a single workstation could provide. Thus was born
Inktomi, a complete index of the Web that ran on
a network of eight Sun workstations.
ΚΚΚΚΚ Normally, that would have been the end of
the story. Maybe a few papers would have been
written about the system and then it would have
been left to languish. But this was at the very
peak of Web mania, when companies such as Yahoo
were going public at ridiculous valuations, and
Brewer and Gaulthier were besieged by calls from
venture capitalists interested in commercializing
Inktomi.
ΚΚΚΚΚ They went for it with gusto. After a couple
of rounds of financing, Inktomi Inc. is now a
30-person company with a commercial Web site up
and running, complete with advertisements
(http://www.hotbot.com). Inktomi is a success (at
least for now), but there is plenty of rumbling
within Berkeley about whether the company hurt or
helped the NOW project.
ΚΚΚΚΚ More than anything, says Brewer in its
defense, Inktomi has served as a reality check
for the NOW project. "Trying to run a service
that is always operational has really taught us a
lot about what it takes to build 24-7 [24-hour,
7-day-a-week] systems" he told me. "Inktomi has
also exposed a number of positive things about
NOWs that we hadn't previously considered. For
example, because we can use multiple
vendors--instead of having a single vendor, as
with a conventional supercomputer--we get much
better service."
ΚΚΚΚΚ Inktomi has also raised the visibility of
the NOW project and given it added credibility.
As evidence, Brewer cites a recent talk he gave
about NOW at a prestigious technical conference.
"I wouldn't have been invited to give that talk
if it wasn't for Inktomi," he points out.
(Inktomi also has boosted Brewer's career--no
small thing given his current untenured status.)
ΚΚΚΚΚ But while most people I spoke to at
Berkeley about Inktomi were quick to echo these
benefits, they invariably asked one pointed
question: "How many papers have you seen about
Inktomi?"
ΚΚΚΚΚ In a world still governed by the maxim
"Publish or perish," where the overriding goal is
to share what you have learned, people bristle at
the silence and nondisclosure agreements that
come out of Inktomi Inc.
ΚΚΚΚΚ It's a problem Brewer is quick to cop to,
although with a couple of caveats. First, he
says, the lack of published papers has more to do
with lack of time than with an effort to protect
trade secrets. Second, he argues that even on
sensitive issues, publication will only be
delayed.
ΚΚΚΚΚ "I don't want our competition to find our
secrets," Brewer says, "but if I wait a year,
then they will no longer be a competitive
advantage, or else they will be patented and I
can publish them."
ΚΚΚΚΚ Perhaps. The real test will come in a few
years, when today's grad students go out to
become professors and engineers. Will the current
intermingling between industry and academia
result in a combination of the best traits of
both? Or will graduates end up being both more
secretive and less imaginative?
ΚΚΚΚΚ At least for now, Rich Martin, one of the
grad students at Berkeley who saw his NOW
research end up being used by Inktomi, believes
the result has been positive.
ΚΚΚΚΚ "It gave the NOW project a lot of
credibility, and that outweighs some of the
disadvantages such as our inability to go over
there and study how the code behaves in
real-world conditions."
ΚΚΚΚΚ Besides, he adds with a touch of amazement,
"with all the excitement about Inktomi, I'm
starting to get calls from headhunters."
ΚΚΚΚΚ
- - -
Steve G. Steinberg (Steve@wired.com) Is an Editor
at Wired Magazine
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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