What is a grid?

　　All or some of a group of computers, servers and storage across an enterprise, virtualized as one large computing system. Because grids unleash latent power that, at any one time, is not being used, they can give companies a huge gain in power, speed and collaboration, radically accelerating compute-intensive processes. Cost, meanwhile, can remain low, as grids can be built using existing infrastructure, helping to ensure optimal utilization of computing capabilities.

　　What effect does grid have on users whose machines are being utilized for processing?

　　Grids are designed to be seamless and transparent . A user whose desktop PC, say, is contributing processing power to the grid will experience no negative effects: the grid runs in the background, utilizing available resources when needed by the system. If the PC user decides to run an application that requires more processing power, the work currently being processed on that machine will be dynamically reallocated to another machine in the grid with available processing power.

　　Is grid computing available today — or is it more of a future statement?

　　Grid computing is used today by many companies across a number of industries. Current IBM customer references for grid include Butterfly.net, a development studio, online publisher and infrastructure provider for massively multiplayer games that connect players on PC's, consoles and mobile devices. Butterfly Grid consists of two clusters of approximately 50 IBM ? xSeries? servers running in IBM hosting facilities. Specialized game servers and database servers are fully meshed over high-speed fiber-optic lines, enabling transparent routing of players to different servers in the grid. Another current reference for IBM Grid Computing is the University of Pennsylvania's groundbreaking National Digital Mammography Archive, which gives rapid retrieval of digital patient files from multiple locations in a secure environment. The University of Pennsylvania Grid manages this huge data volume, schedules traffic and encrypts all image and information transmission using portal systems running almost exclusively on IBM hardware — including sixteen distributed IBM Netfinity servers running Linux and Windows 2000.

　　What industries are using grid computing now?

　　Some examples include: Automotive and aerospace, for collaborative design and data-intensive testing; financial services, for running long, complex scenarios and arriving at more accurate decisions; life sciences, for analyzing and decoding strings of biological and chemical information; government, for enabling seamless collaboration and agility in both civil and military departments and agencies; higher education for enabling advanced, data and compute intensive research.

　　What are the possible benefits of a grid deployment?

　　Benefits can be extensive. They include:

　　· Accelerated time to results, which allows for the provisioning of extra time and resources to solve problems that were previously unsolvable

　　· Improved productivity and collaboration

　　· Allowing widely dispersed departments and businesses to create virtual organizations to share data and resources

　　· More flexible, resilient operational infrastructures

　　· Instantaneous access to compute and data resources to "sense and respond" to needs

　　· Leveraging existing capital investments, which helps to ensure optimal utilization of computing capabilities

　　· Avoiding common pitfalls of over-provisioning and incurring excess costs

　　· Freeing IT organizations from the burden of administering disparate, non-integrated systems

　　What is IBM's relationship with grid computing?

　　IBM views grid computing as critical to the ongoing development of on demand operating environments. For all the excitement and innovation that grid represents, much of the thinking and technology that drive grid are anything but new to IBM. IBM was an early leader in "virtualization" — the driving force behind grid computing — which has enabled the computer to do many processing jobs simultaneously for thousands of users. Grid computing is an advanced evolution of virtualization — and IBM Grid Computing continues IBM's history of IT innovation for business. Deep experience in e-business processes, support for open standards, enabling of our products and services for grid, partnership role in the grid community and relationships with Business Partners make IBM an important force in bringing the benefits of grid to enterprise computing.

　　Grid and e-business on demand: what's the connection?

　　Grid computing is a key element in e-business on demand. Because it enables new kinds of power, flexibility and integration, IBM Grid Computing is a key element of the on demand operating environment.

　　Does IBM use grid computing in its own infrastructure?

　　Yes. IBM is a major user of grid computing. IBM's intraGrid, based on the Globus Toolkit, is a research and development grid that allows IBM to leverage many worldwide assets for research purposes and help us understand the complexities of managing a grid infrastructure on an enterprise scale. And IBM uses grids for other purposes throughout the company. One example is the IBM Boeblingen Lab Grid, composed of three IBM pSeries? clusters running AIX and LoadLeveler, a cross-departmental grid used to run zSeries processor unit simulations. Jobs are submitted through a web portal, presenting users with the same interface as the one they used when running simulations on an isolated cluster. The WebSphere based portal uses the Globus Java CoG Kit to pre-select candidate queues for submitting each simulation, using Globus Metacomputing Directory Service. This pre-selection is based on cluster loads and job characteristics. Access to a shared DB2 database allows for the automated generation of proxy certificates and for the monitoring and reporting of user jobs.

　　If I want to learn more about IBM Grid Computing, what's the first step?

　　Sign up for a Grid Innovation Workshop. These sessions offer a hands-on, business-specific understanding of grid computing's strategic, financial and operational advantages for your business. Customized to individual organizations, IBM Grid Innovation Workshops help companies examine how grid technology can help solve their specific information problems. The Workshop includes an Executive Session, work sessions, validation of findings and a preliminary plan.

　　To sign up, contact us today

　　What does it take to build a grid?

　　Building a grid can be as simple as enabling a small number of PCs (or server or storage network) to take advantage of underutilized processing and storage. This can radically speed completion of a single set of data- or compute-intensive tasks. From a relatively small deployment, you could expand slowly or quickly, narrowly or widely, depending on business needs. Ultimately, an entire enterprise can be enabled for grid — and grids can bring together not only departments and processes within a single company but also those among separate enterprises.

　　What about security in grid environments?

　　Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) is a public-key-based security protocol, using X.509 certificates, a widely employed standard. The protocol provides single sign-on authentication, which allows a user to create a proxy credential that can authenticate with any remote service on the user's behalf, as well as communication protection and initial support for restricted delegation.