Delay Tolerant Computing: The Untapped Potential

Applications leveraging sophisticated smart devices are increasing in complexity requiring more computation and communication. While these devices are becoming more powerful, the support gap is widening when compared to the demand of current and future compute-intensive tasksFor such applications, tasks can not be entirely performed locally and thus exploit different offloading techniques with the aim of minimizing delay. In this paper, we argue for exploiting idle compute resources to support another dimension of applications characterized with high task demand, but can tolerate large delays. We present the delay tolerant computing (DTC) paradigm, and define where it falls within the compute ecosystem. We highlight the potential behind DTC with various applications, and propose a generalized architecture for how this paradigm can be realized. Finally, we show, using a couple of case studies, the potential behind DTC when compared to other compute paradigms by providing preliminary experimental results based on monetary cost, computational requirements, and delay.