For those not familiar with molecular biology, DNA is information-equivalent to RNA on a 1 to 1 mapping; DNA is like a program stored on disk, and RNA is like a program loaded into RAM. Upon loading DNA, a transcription occurs where “T” bases are replaced with “U” bases. Remember, each base pair specifies one of four possible symbols (A [T/U] G C), so a single base pair corresponds to 2 bits of information.

Proteins are the output of running an RNA program. Proteins are synthesized according to the instructions in RNA on a 3 to 1 mapping. You can think of proteins a bit like pixels in a frame buffer. A complete protein is like an image on the screen; each amino acid on a protein is like a pixel; each pixel has a depth of 6 bits (3 to 1 mapping of a medium that stores 2 bits per base pair); and each pixel has to go through a color palette (the codon translation table) to transform the raw data into a final rendered color. Unlike a computer frame buffer, different biological proteins vary in amino acid count (pixel count).

To ground this in a specific example, six bits stored as “ATG” on your hard drive (DNA) is loaded into RAM (RNA) as “AUG” (remember the T->U transcription). When the RNA program in RAM is executed, “AUG” is translated to a pixel (amino acid) of color “M”, or methionine (which is incidentally the biological “start” codon, the first instruction in every valid RNA program). As a short-hand, since DNA and RNA are 1:1 equivalent, bioinformaticists represent gene sequences in DNA format, even if the biological mechanism is in RNA format (as is the case for Influenza–more on the significance of that later!).

OK, back to the main point of this post. The particular RNA subroutine mentioned above codes for the HA gene which produces the Hemagglutinin protein: in particular, an H1 variety. This is the “H1″ in the H1N1 designation.

If you thought of organisms as computers with IP addresses, each functional group of cells in the organism would be listening to the environment through its own active port. So, as port 25 maps specifically to SMTP services on a computer, port H1 maps specifically to the windpipe region on a human. Interestingly, the same port H1 maps to the intestinal tract on a bird. Thus, the same H1N1 virus will attack the respiratory system of a human, and the gut of a bird. In contrast, H5 — the variety found in H5N1, or the deadly “avian flu” — specifies the port for your inner lungs. As a result, H5N1 is much more deadly because it attacks your inner lung tissue, causing severe pneumonia. H1N1 is not as deadly because it is attacking a much more benign port that just causes you to blow your nose a lot and cough up loogies, instead of ceasing to breathe.

Researchers are still discovering more about the H5 port; the Nature article indicates that perhaps certain human mutants have lungs that do not listen on the H5 port. So, those of us with the mutation that causes lungs to ignore the H5 port would have a better chance of surviving an Avian flu infection, whereas as those of us that open port H5 on the lungs have no chance to survive make your time / all your base pairs are belong to H5N1.

So how many bits are in this instance of H1N1? The raw number of bits, by my count, is 26,022; the actual number of coding bits approximately 25,054 — I say approximately because the virus does the equivalent of self-modifying code to create two proteins out of a single gene in some places (pretty interesting stuff actually), so it’s hard to say what counts as code and what counts as incidental non-executing NOP sleds that are required for self-modifying code.

So it takes about 25 kilobits — 3.2 kbytes — of data to code for a virus that has a non-trivial chance of killing a human. This is more efficient than a computer virus, such as MyDoom, which rings in at around 22 kbytes

Today’s cloud computing is very much like the office rental business long time ago. At that time, the office rental business got started and offered an option to these companies who had to build their own office buildings. Some people, especially the investors, might have asked, “Will all the companies rent offices rather than building their own in the future?” This is a very similar question as we ask, “Will all the companies rent data centers rather than building their own in the future?”

Let’s look at the “future” of the office rental. As we can find today, most SMB businesses rent office instead of building their own; most big companies own their offices. In fact, it’s mixed for big companies. They own some of the office buildings, and rent the rest. The criteria to build or rent is not capital investment, but how long it needs the space. The longer it needs it, the more likely it builds or buys its own.

So we can predict the future of cloud computing very much the same as today of office rental. Most SMB will use cloud service providers. Most big companies will continue to build and own their datacenters and infrastructure, but will leverage the cloud services on some short term projects.

Consider that every nation has its own airline, even if it runs at a loss. It’s simply one of the trappings of nationhood. Airlines are part of the national infrastructure. In bigger countries–particularly free-market ones–a few competing airlines can survive. The U.S. has several competing brands, for example. They’re heavily regulated, but they compete.

In every country, there are other airline business models. Take Netjets, a timeshare approach to air travel. Or Air Ambulance services to transport patients on critical journeys. Or regional airlines that feed a larger national carrier. Or the military.

Like clouds, airlines need to interoperate, to ensure that luggage and passengers get where they’re going. Competitors will honor one anothers’ tickets to help out in cases of interruptions, and a set of agreed-upon routing codes and baggage tags make interoperability possible. Regulatory bodies fine airlines for violating service level agreements. Indeed, airports are simply the peering points of airlines, with frequent travellers having the equivalent of private peering.

The model works at the consulting and professional services level, too. We have self-service travel, but we also have travel agents, stitching together trips across multiple carriers and adding related services.

I like this analogy because clouds, like airlines, tend towards consolidation. There are economies of scale to be had, and both are essential to national security. While each airline must work with those of other countries–indeed, there are loose marketing alliances between airlines–every airline has an allegiance to its home country.

Take the monetary system. In his address to the annual RSA Conference on computer security held in San Francisco on March 2nd, Art Coviello, president of EMC’s security division, noted how civilisation started with barter, then invented coins to make money more portable—even though people still had to carry their wealth around with them physically. The first step in the virtualisation of wealth came with the introduction of paper money. These promissory notes, with no intrinsic value, forced people to deal with the concept of attestation—certifying that something is genuine. And with that, the advent of financial instruments such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds created ways of sharing wealth—so that when one person wasn’t using it, another could. Today, virtual money dominates the money supply. In much the same way, virtual processing will one day dominate the computing supply.

The computer consists of the hardware (CPU, RAM, storage and all other devices) and the OS (processes and data). What do these correspond to in the factory? The CPU is a control booth with a phone and the RAM is a special waiting place for the workers. The storage device is a dormitory and the other devices are the rest of the machinery used in the factory.
The dormitory is occupied by the men and the women. Seeing as men like to be active they are the processes, the ones doing different tasks, while the women hold the instructions. They are the data stored in files. So, the women give instructions and the men do what they are told.
Besides these we have two more components.
The user (the person operating the computer) is the factory manager. Software applications (programs such as web browser, media players and others) are the external consultants.