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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 7, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 27
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Special Features:
GRID COMPRESSES 611 YEARS OF
COMPUTING INTO 132 DAYS
Japan's NTT Data Corp said that it has successfully linked thousands of
computers on the Internet to finish a task in 132 days that would take a
single computer 611 years.
It marked Japan's first test of "grid computing" -- where linked computers
share small parts of mammoth calculations -- and meant sales of the processing
power would go ahead by next March, the company said.
"The project went just according to plan," said NTT Data spokesman
Yoshinori
Munekata. "We are already in talks with several customers for the
product."
In the test that ended in April, the company linked 12,206 random computer
users found through the Internet who were willing to download a program onto
their systems that would share the computing burden of two scientific
projects.
One sought to identify repeated patterns in the human genome for use in a
study of diseases' relation to genes, while the other analysed the light-
transmitting ability of different materials for a future light-based
computer.
NTT Data, a subsidiary of telecoms giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Corp,
said its grid computing service would be priced between $16,950-25,400 for
every 100 computers needed.
The company would install its system by linking clients' computers on a
higher-speed Intranet.
Marketing for random user-based Internet grid computing was still about two
years away, Munekata said, adding that prospective clients were mostly
research institutes and universities.
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