Locality of data

The place of a computer could be defined by the locality of its inputs (keyboard, mouse and monitor). However, in a network environment the place of a computer is less evident. Computers on the other end of the world and even onwards can be accessed although one does get experiences of delay.

So place is still a factor of distinction for computers. On the other hand, the availability of computers affect many places. Another problem, van Splunter points out, is the local availability of data. Google has these large containers with a lot of computers in it, which need to be located together because there is a lot of parallel processing going on at the same time and they have to go through a whole lot of data, which is present at that location. If you want to have the same interactions somewhere else, you have to send all this data over the network, which is inefficient. So the availability of data is also an aspect of location. With privacy and sensitive information location is even more important.

CN