| Most industries today have become so dynamic that | | | | Systems Lab at Argonne National Laboratory, a |
| organisations have to consistently seek and adapt to | | | | pioneer in Grid Computing, provided his definition for |
| change, in order to survive and prosper. Factors like | | | | the layman as being the "technology to enable the |
| more diversified customer preferences, technological | | | | sharing of computing resources across institutional |
| advances, increased competitive threats and an | | | | boundaries". Research firm, Gartner, Inc., defines grid |
| intensified global economy are among the forces | | | | computing as a way to solve computing tasks using |
| inducing change. Organisations need to become more | | | | resources that are shared by more than one owner |
| adaptable embracing Charles Darwin's view that "it is | | | | and coordinated to solve more than one problem.The |
| not the strongest of the species that survives, nor | | | | concept of Grid Computing was initially popular among |
| the most intelligent, but the one that is the most | | | | academics, research and scientific communities. It |
| adaptable to change".A survey conducted by | | | | was used for functions that required a substantial |
| PricewaterhouseCoopers in March 2004 shows that | | | | amount of computing power. However in these last |
| 47% of the CEO's of the US's fastest growing | | | | years, an increasing number of organisations are early |
| companies believe that their most critical success | | | | adopting and trying to reap benefits from this |
| factor is having flexible strategies to respond to | | | | technology.There are numerous examples where Grid |
| accelerating business changes. However, many | | | | computing has been applied. Among the research |
| recently implemented Information Systems still tend | | | | communities, Oxford University is using Grid |
| to ignore this need for flexibility and at times are | | | | technology to analyse 3.5 billion molecules to work |
| hard to scale and customise, thereby limiting the | | | | out their cancer fighting potential. Same is being done |
| ability of an enterprise to react fast to its evolving | | | | by Stanford University in order to analyse the role |
| business needs.In the last two decades we | | | | protein plays in keeping people healthy. The search |
| constantly experienced a dramatic change in the way | | | | for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project is |
| we store and process digital information. Every few | | | | another example. Here, volunteers download and |
| years there has been an industry breakpoint; an | | | | install a free program so as to process and analyse |
| important new computing concept that changed | | | | massive amounts of data in search of evidence of |
| radically the way computers are used and | | | | possible radio transmissions from extraterrestrial life. |
| Information Systems are implemented. Examples | | | | When tallying up all the processing power that these |
| include graphical and more user-friendly interfaces, the | | | | PC's provide, it's like having one big supercomputer. |
| clientserver concept and the Internet. Such factors | | | | Grid technologies also played a major role in |
| have somehow aided and contributed to position | | | | identifying the world's largest known prime number. |
| computers as a necessary commodity. Additionally, | | | | This was part of the Marsenne project where |
| with the constant drop in the cost of hardware, and | | | | scientists identified the 43rd Marsenne Prime |
| better and cheaper network bandwidth, computers | | | | 230,402,457-1. - a figure that contains 9,152,052 |
| have become even more ubiquitous. The Internet | | | | digits.Business ApplicabilityWithin business communities, |
| has evolved tremendously and is today considered as | | | | the Grid concept is far more popular among large |
| probably the most effective communication medium. | | | | corporations. Baum, the publishing editor for Oracle |
| Whilst technology tends to evolve in a non-linear | | | | Corporation, states that these corporations are |
| fashion, Moore's Law has ensured that processing | | | | initially attracted by the amount of savings that the |
| power has been increasing exponentially.Though this | | | | technology can provide. Mainstay Partners conducted |
| is contributing to easier hoarding and dissemination of | | | | an ROI study to evaluate the enterprise grid |
| information, ICT professionals today still face tough | | | | technology platforms currently in use at seven |
| challenges. ICT budgets grew rapidly in the late 90's | | | | participating companies. It was concluded that the |
| in anticipation of the Y2K problem. In these last years | | | | adaptation of grid technology yielded an average of |
| many ICT departments have been even asked to | | | | 43 percent savings in hardware cost. Much of the |
| cut their budgets while they were expected to | | | | savings were credited to the shift from a large |
| continue providing an appropriate information | | | | symmetric multiprocessor server to a number of |
| infrastructure so as to enable the organisations to | | | | lower cost servers. With the use of Grid technology |
| augment their products and possibly gain a | | | | the latter setup delivered similar or at times even |
| competitive edge. Hardware replacement cycles are | | | | more computational power than the larger system, |
| perceived to have increased. Generally speaking, ICT | | | | however with fewer costs. Baum's report adds that |
| budgets did not grow in these last years in line with | | | | the grids within these companies were being used for |
| the computational needs of the organisations; whilst | | | | a variety of applications, including enterprise resource |
| workloads are still increasing, the capacities to handle | | | | planning (ERP), decision support, customer relationship |
| them are not.In some cases increasing a firm's | | | | management (CRM), and supply chain management |
| computational needs might end up in a lot of | | | | (SCM).Still, companies that operate in the financial |
| computational power which is not appropriately | | | | services industry, drug discoveries and weather |
| utilised. Why? Consider for example the utilization of a | | | | modeling are initially more prone to benefit from Grid |
| server machine. Most of the time its real processing | | | | technologies, as they are involved in complex |
| capacity is not used at all. However maybe | | | | scientific and mathematical calculations and therefore |
| sometimes because a large and long process is | | | | require an added amount of computational power. So |
| executed or the number of connected users | | | | are companies that tend to process large amounts of |
| temporarily increase, the server might endup | | | | data for their business intelligence activities. However, |
| experiencing a processing overload. It has been | | | | organisations are increasingly being enticed to adopt |
| estimated that on average a desktop computer uses | | | | Grid technologies even for their transactional based |
| only about 5% to 8% of its processing power | | | | systems, given that Grids may further facilitate |
| (EuropeanCeo, 2005). Whilst, as Hendry (2004) | | | | storage space Issues.Challenges faced by Grid |
| reports, load balancing can aid in the distribution of | | | | ComputingIDC, the market intelligence and advisory |
| processing and communication activity, similar servers | | | | services firm, are referring to Grid computing as the |
| that experience spikes in processor usage are barely | | | | fifth generation of computing, after client-server and |
| used for the rest of the day and eventually end up | | | | multi-tier (Table 1).Yet, according to IDC, the |
| with a large amount of unused computing capacity.So | | | | technology still needs to be 'normalised' and has to |
| the inevitable questions are, is it really feasible to | | | | overcome various challenges. IDC believes that these |
| increase and upgrade the firm's single source of | | | | concerns, in some cases, are more perception than |
| computational power if most of the time the existing | | | | reality, and as organisations gain more experience |
| processing power is not being used? How can we | | | | with this distributed approach, their concerns will be |
| ensure that a firm's computational resources are well | | | | laid to rest.Additionally, a research conducted by the |
| balanced and allocated, so as to minimise wastage | | | | 451 Group shows that software licensing, security |
| and eventually, justify any further investment in the | | | | and bandwidth matters are among the things that |
| ICT infrastructure?The basic concept that gives | | | | can disturb grid rollouts.ConclusionWhilst Grid |
| insight to the answer to these questions extends | | | | computing still needs to find broad acceptance in the |
| back to the 70's when the notion of distributed | | | | commercial space, yet, market analysts state that |
| computing was born. Today, we are seeing increasing | | | | the technology is here to stay. As Tom Hawk, the |
| interest among business communities in what is | | | | general manager of Grid computing for IBM says, |
| termed as, Grid Computing.DefinitionWorld-renowned | | | | "The Web is about sharing information. The grid is |
| organisations are promoting the Grid in a big way and | | | | about sharing resources".Sandro Azzopardi is a |
| several definitions can be found. It has become a | | | | professional author who writes several articles on |
| fashionable term. Dr. Ian Foster, a professor at the | | | | various subjects on his web site and local |
| University of Chicago and director of the Distributed | | | | newspapers and magazines. |