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Grid Computing Meets Web Services?

Posted by Hemos on from the combine-'em-together dept.

jgeelan writes "According to an article in the current issue of Web Services Journal, by ex-IBM, ex-Vitria Technology, ex-IONA middleware maven Dirk Hamstra, the open source initiative known as OGSA, the Open Grid Services Architecture, is poised to bring utility-based computing a step closer. "The combination of Web services and grid computing," Hamstra writes, "virtualizes networked resources using common computing standards, making them accessible to a larger audience." Amazing what a little R&D money from IBM, a prime grid-computing mover, can achieve."

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Other companies are already working on this ... by DanEsparza · · Score: 4, Informative
    Just wanted to point out that other companies are already working on this concept, too. 'The Mind Electric' has a very nice set of existing Java based web-services tools.

    They are apparently expanding this toolkit to a 'grid service platform' called 'Gaia' detailed here.

    From the website:

    GAIA is a service-oriented grid-computing platform that connects producers and consumers of services and data while shielding them from issues like fail over, load balancing and clustering. GAIA can connect and control web services hosted on any combination of platforms, and uses a P2P architecture for reliability and scalability.

    GAIA is based on simple yet powerful concepts, can run on machines ranging from enterprise servers to wireless PDAs, and has native implementations for Java and Microsoft .NET.

  2. grid computing sites by jukal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is a little collection of grid computing related companies, organisations and projects. If there is something crucial missing, let me know :)

    1. Re:grid computing sites by Zach+Garner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, "grid" comes from "Power Grid" which indicates how a computational grid is intended to be used.

      Plug the organizations computers and other resources into the grid (these are analog to power plants). When you, at your workstation, need to do something computationally expensive or otherwise use the grid's resources, your computer uses the grid to do the work.

      You plug in your radio to the power grid, press the button and you've got music, instantly. You plug in your accounting program to the computational grid, press the button and you've got complex stockmarket forcasts, instantly.