 |
|
DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 7, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 27
|
Special Features:
GRIDS - A VERTICAL MARKET
PERSPECTIVE PT. 2
Using Grids as Organizational Tools
Grids can also be examined by the type of organization in which they are
deployed. From this perspective, the relationship between grids and networks
is more than analogous. Grids by type of organization are defined as
follows:
Enterprise Grids
Intranetworking for private resource sharing within a single
enterprise.
Partner Grids
Extranetworking to enable resource sharing among selected enterprise
partners.
Service Grids
Internetworking to provide public resource sharing on a global scale.
Enterprise grids are currently the primary application of grid technology.
This will remain the case going forward for quite a few years, but the trend
toward partner grids and service grids is already developing. Today, some
enterprises are successfully using external service-provider applications and
services to complement their enterprise IT infrastructure.
Grid Organizations and Standards
The grid computing community focuses on coordinated resource sharing and
problem sharing in dynamic, multi-institutional, virtual organizations. With
such a focus, it is clear that interoperability and open technical standards
are key to grid computing's adoption. Essential to the Grid's success will be
open standards and protocols similar to TCP/IP, HTML, and other access
protocols and standards that, once in place, enabled the Internet to be used
on such a widespread basis.
The key organizations leading the path to standardization of grid computing
are the Globus Project and the Global Grid Forum (GGF).
Globus Project
The Globus Project is a research and development project started in 1995 to
foster the use of grid computing in solving scientific and engineering
problems. As defined by the Globus Project, Grids are "persistent distributed
environments that enable software applications to integrate instruments,
displays, computational and information resources that are managed by diverse
organizations in widespread locations." The specific problem that Grids
address is "coordinated resource sharing and problem solving in dynamic,
multi-institutional virtual organizations." From these definitions, it can be
seen that the Globus project has a strong focus on the broad concepts of
resource sharing and virtual organizations.
To date, the project has focused primarily on developing fundamental
technologies to build compute grids. The Globus Toolkit, an open-source
software toolkit that enables software developers to integrate Grid
capabilities into existing applications, has become the de facto standard for
building grid systems.
Like its open-source software predecessor LINUX, Globus is supported by a
growing community of developers and users. Globus is increasingly being
supported by commercial organizations as well. For example, IBM announced the
introduction of IBM Grid Service for Linux and AIX in August 2002, a
commercial version of the Globus Toolkit with IBM service and support.
Similarly, Platform Computing, Inc. offers Platform Globus, a hardened and
commercially supported version of the Globus Toolkit.
Global Grid Forum
The not-for-profit GGF is a community-initiated forum of individual
researchers and practitioners working on Grid technologies. Many of the
organizations and individuals that are part of the Globus Project also
participate actively in the GGF. As a result, there is significant symmetry
between the efforts of the two groups. In general, however, the main focus of
the GGF is on standards development while the main focus of the Globus Project
is on implementation and software development.
GGF focuses on the promotion and development of Grid technologies and
applications via the development and documentation of "best practices,"
implementation guidelines, and standards with an emphasis on rough consensus
and running code. GGF efforts are also aimed at the development of a broadly
based Integrated Grid Architecture that can serve to guide the research,
development, and deployment activities of the emerging grid communities. The
GGF believes that defining such an architecture will advance the grid agenda
through the broad deployment and adoption of fundamental basic services, and
by sharing code among different applications with common requirements.
Open Grid Services Architecture
Currently embodied in a series of working drafts making their way through
the
GGF document process, the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) is a proposed
grid systems architecture based on an integration of grid computing and Web
services concepts and technologies. This new set of specifications brings
together key Web services standards including XML, WSDL, and SOAP with the
concepts and tools of grid computing that have been developed by the Globus
Project.
By the end of 2003, all major Grid infrastructures are likely to offer grid
services that are OGSA-based (or at least OGSA-compliant). Many software
vendors like IBM and Oracle have already announced that they will provide
OSGA-compliant product implementations, either based on the Globus Project or
their own. The transition of the grid community to OGSA-based mechanisms will
largely be accomplished within just a few years.
GRIDtoday, HPCwire, and DSstar subscribers can look forward to a discounted
rate on this detailed Insight Resarch report, starting June 30th, 2003. For
more information or to order this report, please visit
www.gridtoday.com/reports/grid-market-info.html, or contact
Shannon at
Shannon@tgc.com.
|