IBM's SoulPad portable virtual computing environment

There are already ways to take our user profile and data around with you on a flash drive, but IBM's new SoulPad virtual computing user environment system intends to kind of take all that to the next level. With SoulPad, not only would your user environment be persistent, but so would be your session. Imagine suspending said user session—open windows, multimedia, active (and inactive) data, etc.—to a portable drive-enabled device (the demo video [14MB WMV] uses an iPod photo as an example) and booting back to this session independently another machine. When you're done you resave your session to your device and the host machine returns to normal. Of course it only boots off Knoppix right now, so if you Windows or Mac users think you'll be able to get SoulPad running with your mainstream OS of choice, you're gonna have to wait for Big Blue to pound all that out (or get to licensing it).

P.S. -Love how the guy in the demo video was listening to Depeche Mode. (That was DM, wasn't it?)
P.P.S. -Billy Joel? Sorry, we'll lay off the 80s comps a little bit.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Yup,

Sounds like DP to me.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Wow if you think this was Depeche Mode you really should go and see an ear specialist.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Very cool, I've heard about this but this is the first video I've seen.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

That's awesome, but I wouln't want to wait for 2 1/2 minutes for it to boot (unless I really needed it).

Very cool though, this will be awesome future technology.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

I think he was listening to Allentown by Billy Joel. Personally I prefer Depeche Mode :-P

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

If you use screen on Linux you don't have to imagine this. You do need a network connection to the server, but that's trivial dee days...

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Yes, cool, but optimally you would upload your current session to an online server instead. Then authenticate on a new device and retrieve it over the internet. Even better if it automatically scales down [resolution, sound, etc.] depending on what platform you're running. Not a new concept in IT, but what I would love to see .mac become for Apple users.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

#1: DP and DM don't sound the same.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

kewl! can be particularly useful for me..who don't like to move around with laptop..

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

I have a friend who's been using this, along with a gutted laptop for when nothing better is available, for a couple months now. Of course, I'm not sure if his session is persistent yet - but on the other hand, the entire magnetic-media-based filesystem is heavily encryped.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Nice touch! I like the bootable partition on the iPod to bootstrap the whole thing, even on a diskless workstation.

For those who can't wait to do the same thing, here's the recipe I've been using since last December:
- one iPod with a few gigs free space (my smallest virtual machine takes 200MB, my biggest takes 11GB)
- two licenses of Windows (one for the hardware and one for the virtual machine)
- one license of VMWare (I use VMWare Workstation)

Install VMWare on your iPod (ex. G:Program Files). Whenever you get to a computer you want to use as if it were your own computer, connect the usb cord, and boot up VMWare. Maximize the display. Voila, you are now using your own computer.

Since I started doing that, I consider my home computer to be on my belt - in my iPod - at all times. Most of my important stuff (data, applications) is only installed on that virtual machine (keep backups!). When I am somewhere (at work, visiting a friend or family) and need to use my home computer, I plug into the first available computer, and feel right at home. I can even use the network connection if it's available.

I was in shock for the first two months of this year, while it was sinking in that hardware as I knew it was irrelevant. I need a faster machine? I just sit somewhere else and resume the virtual machine. Hardware problem and I need to change my computer? Install Windows on the new computer, and resume the virtual machine - no need to reinstall all my applications and data when doing hardware upgrades. I don't even need to carry a laptop - I have 4 virtual machines on my belt, each with a different OS and a different purpose in life. I even suspect I could carry nodes for a Beowulf cluster on my iPod, boot up instances on 20 PCs on my floor (assuming I have enough vmware licences), and do massive computations for the day without asking IT to reformat all the drives just for the kicks.

That's a future I like...

Christian

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Billy Joel, Allentown.

This isn't really that spectacular an idea with one exception - the notion that you can boot into it. But even that's not that stunning.

Take VMWare or Virtual PC, work in it and copy your virtual machine to the external drive. If you want something non-commercial - try Bochs.

In fact, the VPC version will work on Macs and PCs, and the VMWare version will work on PCs and Linux. Bochs works on all three, I think. You just run the appropriate version of the emulator and point it at your system image.

If you REALLY want boot time - then you put a bootable partition on your external drive with knoppix that autostarts into Bochs. Most PCs can boot off external USB2 hard drives these days.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

for those that want to go fully linux:

a minimal linux enviroment on a cd, with xen running on top.

a xen system image on a removable drive.

then its just a matter of inserting cd, booting machine and presto.

hell, why not put the boot cd onto a flash chip and hook it up to the ide controller?

hmm, i feel like building a system like this at home :P

i wonder if it can support multiple users with seperate external drives at the same time ;)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

Last month, FingerGear accomplished what IBM is still trying to figure out how to do but in a much more complicated way. FingerGear has created a bootable USB Flash Drive with a complete Debian Linux OS and OpenOffice Suite of applications that are fully Microsoft compatible. The bootable device needs only 256MB of Flash for the OS and all other software which includes, to name a few,--
-Evolution Email
-Firefox Browser
-Word processor
-Spreadsheet creator
-Powerpoint creator
-Zip Compressor
-PDF Creator
Moreover, the device has a secure login system and 256-bit AES encryption to protect sensitive data and a 'Public' director for sharing not so sensitive data as a regular flash drive. I'm sure I left a few things out. www.fingergear.com

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 19th 2005 1:03AM]

...forgot to reference the Engadget article:
"FingerGear puts out bootable Computer-On-a-Stick bootable USB Flash Drive" 7/23/05
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000070051575/