Rocket science coming to an enterprise near you
The concept of treating the network as a single machine running a distributed OS has intrigued the processor-hungry IT community for years. The latest incarnation is grid computing, in which compute resources are aggregated across geographically dispersed locations to tackle complex jobs.
But if researchers, the leading hardware providers, and a handful of startups succeed, grid computing will be a realistic option for mainstream business applications. The concept makes sense as companies look to adopt more decentralized network architectures, in part, for business continuity reasons.
But as this technology comes out of labs this year, enterprises won’t be installing these multicluster environments in-house. Instead, they’ll be tapping into resources offered by grids now under construction, either at universities or datacenter service providers. And the method that they’ll access and submit jobs will be through standards-based XML Web services (see ” Grid project nets new tools “).
And as businesses automate more business processes with application-to-application Web services, the next-generation high-availability, load-balancing, and failure-detection technology being developed for grid software will enable enterprises to extend their Web services outside their companies.
At LinuxWorld in New York last week, IBM Server Group Vice President William Zeitler said grid computing mirrors the open-source movement in that it loosens the grip of proprietary computing. He said, “Those vendors not aligned with that community will be on the wrong side of history.” For more on LinuxWorld go to www.infoworld.com/news/hnlinuxworldny.html . If he’s right, grid computing may be the next grassroots IT phenomenon.
