Next steps for the Grid - turning the hype into realityEdinburgh 13 January 2003 The Grid is at a crucial turning point in its development. The enormous progress made to date has largely been driven by the needs of the scientific communities. In order to justify the large amounts of public investment made at national and supra-national levels over the past three years, the Grid must start meeting the needs of all of the communities it seeks to serve. With the advent of the Open Grid Services Architecture the Grid developer community has the opportunity to create a Grid services infrastructure which will meet the needs of users from basic scientific research to the financial services sector and beyond. However, while this opportunity clearly exists, it may prove as hard as ever to move from hype to reality.
To date, a number of Grid projects around the world ? including many of the European projects ? have spent considerable time and effort capturing the requirements of their user communities. While this has resulted in an excellent understanding of the needs of the scientific user communities, the level of detail and time expended on the other sectors ? most notably the commercial sector ? has not been adequate.
To move the Grid from hype to reality requires buy-in from the commercial sector. This is already being demonstrated through the involvement in Grid development of the major IT companies. However, the Grid community should not fool itself into believing the current level of support will continue without some real success stories from the commercial sector emerging over the next 18 months or so.
The involvement of early-adopter companies in Grid applications projects over the next 18 months is therefore crucial to ensure we engage the commercial sector and understand its needs. Without this understanding the Grid will always remain where it is at the moment ? a vital technology meeting the needs of the scientific community but of little relevance elsewhere.
If you?re from the commercial sector and you?re reading this ? I encourage you to take up the challenge of moving the Grid from hype to reality. You might just be involved in the creation of one of the most important technologies of the 21st Century.
Reprinted with permission from the GridStart newsletter. Copyright of this article is retained by the University of Edinburgh.
Dr. Mark Parsons, EPCC [News on Advanced IT] [Calendar] [Analysis] [IT in Medicine] |
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