GRID COMPUTING

Ian Foster has a very good article in the current issue of Scientific American (April 2003) on the topic of Grid Computing. I was especially impressed by his table of 17 major grid computing initiatives, including one in Singapore, as well as several in Europe and one in Japan.

Ian Foster’s Website
Foster wrote in Nature in 2000, “Internet computing and Grid technologies promise to change the way we tackle complex problems. They will enable large-scale aggregation and sharing of computational, data and other resources across institutional boundaries. And harnessing these new technologies effectively will transform scientific disciplines ranging from high-energy physics to the life sciences.” He went on to note that, “There are over 400 million PCs around the world, many as powerful as an early 1990s supercomputer. And most are idle much of the time. Every large institution has hundreds or thousands of such systems. Internet computing seeks to exploit otherwise idle workstations and PCs to create powerful distributed computing systems with global reach and supercomputer capabilities.” Grid computing is currently established in scientific and academic community, among power users of computers, but offers potential for e-commerce and many other activities. Indeed, it may well be that grid computing will lead to information processing utilities, and away from dependence on the personally owned or business owned computer. Foster’s website includes not only a link to the Nature article, and a number of other general articles on the promise of grid computing, but links to a large number of more technical resources on the subject. The Digital Divide in Grid Computing is almost certainly as large as that in any ICT field, while the approach would offer developing countries great efficiency in ICT investments.