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