Australian scientists claim grid computing win - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Australian scientists claim grid computing win

By Jeanne-Vida Douglas, ZDNet Australia
October 08, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Australian-scientists-claim-grid-computing-win/0,130061791,120268848,00.htm

Australian computer scientists Alexander Barmouta and Rajkumar Buyya have brought grid computing one step closer to commercialisation, releasing a preliminary prototype of their Grid Bank resource accounting infrastructure.

Grid computing refers to a form of Internet-based parallel and distributed computing, which enables sharing, exchange, discovery and aggregation of computing resources across multiple administrative domains.

According to Buyya, a grid bank style system is fundamental to the commercial operations of large-scale computer grids, so as to offer resource owners accountability of resource utilisation.

"We are offering a mechanism whereby users can keep track of the resources they are consuming and those that are being consumed by others," Buyya said. "The Grid Bank operator would be a totally separate entity, which merely offers accounting resources to the grid participants, like credit card companies work today."

Buyya said that without an appropriate credit and tracking system, grid projects will not become commercially viable.

"Large companies are not going to offer their computing resources free of charge - they also need to know how they can benefit from the relationship," Buyya said.

Buyya and Barmouta expect to have an operational prototype to launch commercially within six months, and look forward demonstrating their research at the upcoming Super Computing 2002 conference to be held in November in Baltimore in the US.

"Sun Microsystems has provided the project with a lot of support and IBM are also interested in what we are doing," Buyya said. "Ultimately we want to automate the whole grid resources accounting process so that it becomes an attractive commercial venture."