Global consortium boost for grid computing
Global consortium boost for grid computing
Jan 27, 2005: A new consortium is being formed between the heavy weights in storage to educate people on the value of grid computing and to jointly develop software that servers the users of this technology.
Globus Consortium is made up of Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Sun Microsystems, but does not include Oracle or Microsoft. This group will focus on advancing the open source Globus Toolkit for enterprises.
The consortium will not be a standards body, but it intends to work in tandem with existing grid standards bodies, such as the Global Grid Forum.
Dan Kusnetzky, the IDC's vice president of system software research, said: "Virtual environment software, the foundation for grid computing, saw worldwide revenues grow 25 percent between 2003 and 2004.
"Open standards, such as the Globus Toolkit, are an important part of that growth. IDC expects standards to continue to be an important part of virtualised environments going forward."
Greg Astfalk, the chief scientist for the office of strategy and technology at HP, added: "HP views the Grid as an important strategic space and a key component of the HP Adaptive Enterprise, which helps enterprises become agile and simplifies their access to global enterprise computing solutions.
"In HP's view, the grid is a powerful way to virtualise, share, and manage resources; our leadership and financial support in the new Globus Consortium will further accelerate the development, adoption and quality of the open source Globus Toolkit."
There are already a few organisations set-up that also promote grid computing, such as the Globus Alliance, Enterprise Grid Alliance and Global Grid Forum. Organisations will hope that the developments between each group will not get too confusing so that real progress will be made.
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