YOU too could soon have access to the power of a supercomputer. This week a group of leading technology companies joined forces to bring 鈥済rid鈥� computing to the masses 鈥� and they are using open-source software to do it.
Grid technologies allow computer users to pool resources, such as processing power, storage and data, to create powerful 鈥渧irtual鈥� supercomputers. The dream is to make this capability available on tap, like water or electricity, for customers to rent when they need it.
To help make this possible, scientists at the Argonne National Laboratories and the University of Southern California came up with open source software called the Globus Toolkit that anyone can use to tap into the grid. This has now been adopted by IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Sun Microsystems and Nortel Networks as the foundation for their bid to bring grid computing to a wider audience.
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鈥淭he dream is to make supercomputing available on tap, like water or electricity鈥�
Before this, the development of grids was driven mainly by scientists who needed vast processing power to carry out research in areas such as climate modelling, high-energy physics and genetics. Some companies already use grid software to boost their computer processing capabilities for tasks such as risk analysis or drug research, but used software they developed in-house, making broader cooperation tricky. Now all businesses could have a piece of the action.
