Definition

Information Kit: Grid Computing

Part of the Learning guides glossary:
 In this Issue

>> From the Editor: Grid computing...and how soon?
>> Featured Topic: From SETI to the enterprise to everywhere
>> The Players: Who they are today
>> Learn More: White papers, interview, and Best Web Links

 From the Editor: Grid computing...and how soon?

by Karen Guglielmo
Site Editor, SearchCIO.com

Grid computing and its sibling (some say they are the same person), utility computing, are on the minds of those who are looking for the next breakthrough in enterprise cost efficiency, customer service, and...well, perhaps, let us call it total corporate or even multicorporate synergy. If it isn't available this year, this year may be the year to really know about it. In this newsletter, we've assembled almost everything we currently know about grid computing. We hope it saves you time.

Next Steps

 See our definition of grid computing

 Featured Topic: From SETI to the enterprise to everywhere

Only yesterday it seems, grid computing was being equated with collaborative computing in which many PC users could combine to tackle ambitious projects such as searching for signals from outer space (as in the SETI project.) Somehow that idea and capability got combined with the idea of Web services and treating the Internet as a single giant resource able to be put to work for the business enterprise. Since the Internet is a network of computers, often waiting for work in their spare time, why not treat the Internet (or some subset of it) as an extension of the enterprise, farming out number churning, customer management, expert services, even certain special kinds of thinking to other companies? And possibly this kind of exchange will lead to new kinds of companies -- or at least to a new way of looking at your own company.

 View our archived Webcast: Exploring the power of grid computing

 Read Carol Hildebrand's: The possibilities for grid computing in the corporate world

Read Garry Kranz's: Finding utilitarian uses for utility computing

 The Players: Who they are today

Grid computing has attracted the interest and become part of the strategy of almost every major IT product developer and has also spawned some new ones. Here are the companies that we've heard the most about.

 IBM
  Sun Microsystems
  HP
  Oracle
  Platform
  Butterfly.net
  Entropia
  United Devices

 Learn More: White papers, interview, and Best Web Links

Grid Computing: A New Technology for the Advanced Web?
(Sun Microsystems)


Best Web Links -> Outsourcing options -> Grid computing
 Expert charts future for grid computing?
(Interview by Matt Hines with Ian Foster, head of the distributed systems lab at Argonne National Laboratory)


DataSynapse: Leading the Way with Commercial Solutions for Application Reliability/Resiliency?
(Aberdeen Consulting)

This was last updated in May 2008
Posted by: Margaret Rouse

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