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The book starts with some artificial, business cases, explaining how Grid technologies could be useful in business. Then it continues with Grid basics, including notes on the history: Grid computing is not a completely new invention, but builds on a number of developments in the nineties, such as metacomputing and distribtued computing.
A definite answer on the question, "what is a Grid?" is not given by the authors. There are almost as many definitions of Grid computing as there are Grid researchers.
In the chapter "Grids in Business" the authors define several types of Grids: departmental Grids, enterprise Grids, partner Grids, and open Grids. In practice today we only see the first two types. In enterprises one sees a number of proprietary Grid products, such as Platform LSF, SUN Grid Engine. There is interest in standards, but there is not yet solid software built on those.
The technical chapter gives a bird eyes view of the current Grid technology, with a focus on the Globus toolkit. Both authors worked extensively with that toolkit. Case studies on both academic Grids, like the NEESGrid, and the Dame project, and company Grids, like experiences at Wachovia and MCNC are extensively described.
The last chapter tries to tie in Grid computing in the management practices. This includes the marketing mix, SWOT analysis and change management when planning to start introducing a Grid in an organisation. It also includes a part on modern programming techniques like xtreme programming and self-documenting codes, that are using, or should use Grid technology, according to the authors. Whether this is convincing enough for managers is doubtful: Grids are best used to support critical business processes. They want stable, well maintained and supported systems.
The book is meant as a starting point. The reader is presented an overview of some resources for futher investigation, and there is a supporting web site which is kept up to date and with some links per chapter to other sources. However, when reading a book, I prefer the references to be contained in the book: you do not always have Internet at hand and it also disrupts the reading process if you first have to go to a computer to read the reference.
However, apart from that, the authors produced a very useful book for those who want to get a quick introduction in Grid computing.
Book review - Grid computing, The savvy manager's guide, Pawel Plasczak and Richard Weller, Morgan Kaufmann, 2005, ISBN-13:978-0-12-742503-0.
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