Industry initiative NPI aims at defining an open Distributed Resource Management standard API

San Jose 07 Nov 2000 One of the foundations of the Grid is to connect resources from all kinds of providers, running all kinds of software. Most Grid initiatives use Globus services, or for instance in Germany Unicore, to provide a connectivity layer. With NPI - the New Productivity Initiative - this could change. Eleven companies have taken the initiative to define and open standard API for distributed resource management. When it is a success, it can accelerate the take-up of Grid services in commercial settings.

Eleven hardware and software companies - ANSYS Inc., Aurema, Blackstone Technology Group, Cadence Design Systems, Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CLRC), Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard Company, Neolinear, Inc., Platform Computing, SGI and TeraPort. - formed the New Productivity Initiative (NPI). NPI is defining and developing an industry specification reference model and a layered set of open APIs for Distributed Resource Management (DRM).

Defining standard interfaces will make it easier to develop software that can be widely used, and allows companies to concentrate on developing specialised products and services. The initiative is member driven. A technical committee decides on the standard and the future development.

The group expects that NPI will change how we use computers. The standard will enable a new generation of applications written to use the network as a computer. No longer will applications be limited to the confines of a single machine.

NPI is expected to accelerate the development of a wide range of standards compliant DRM products, fostering innovation, competition and ultimately greater customer benefit. Customers can already use many of their existing applications with existing DRM implementations to achieve significant productivity benefits. A DRM standard will grow the range of choices customers have in selecting which DRM implementations and compatible products to use.

The working group for DRM standardisation will have its first meeting this year. Once an appropriate standards body is selected, the working group will work towards having a draft specification ready for Spring 2001.

Some current examples of DRM use are:

  • Service Providers managing extensive computing resources in support of customers' e-Businesses.
  • Computer, chip and electronic manufacturers harnessing the power of hundreds or thousands of computers to design products faster.
  • Manufacturing firms performing more and better simulations to develop safer cars. Bioinformatics firms creating virtual supercomputers from many machines to map human genes. Digital Animation studios creating unbelievable special effects.
  • Harnessing thousands of ordinary PCs over the Internet in a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) model to battle the influenza virus and to find signs of extraterrestrial life.

Some of the comments of the founding companies:

"Aurema has been working hard with OEM partners such as Compaq, Sun, and Fujitsu-Siemens to deliver Resource Management solutions at the Operating System level, we are now delighted to be part of the NPI consortium to help drive the standard for Distributed Resource Management for vendors and customers to reap significantly improved productivity from their computer resources," said Richard Osborne, CEO Aurema. "DRM is a required technology that will drive Internet computing productivity to a new level."

"Platform is proud to be a founding member of NPI. By producing standards compliant DRM software we will be able to deliver unlimited computing power to our customers," said Dr. Songnian Zhou, CEO, Platform Computing Corp. "This is very exciting - our customers will be able to think locally and compute globally. Just like the electric power grid drove the 20th century economy, the Internet computing grid will be a key driver for the 21st century economy."

"As a founding member of the NPI, TeraPort will actively influence future Distribution Resource Management standards to integrate the needs of engineering ASPs. TeraPort's engineering portal is a gate into the new world of computing power. Internet and Intranet ASP compute centres will provide engineering applications and will give more flexibility and transparency to customers. Basic DRM technologies are seamlessly integrated to operate the computer servers in a 21st century computing grid with high efficiency," explains Dr. Andy Rebetzky, Managing Director, TeraPort.

The NPI has established a web site, http://www.newproductivity.org.

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