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July 23, 2003Grid Computing in Las VegasBy: Ahmar Abbas
I’ll be running the session on grid computing at Enterprise IT Week at the CDExpo in Las Vegas in November. This show has gotten a lot of press because of its full frontal assault on COMDEX - which is being held in Las Vegas during the exact same week. Read Alan Meckler’s blog for his vision for CDExpo.
Title: Grid Computing
Link | 23 July 03 @ 10:22 | Discuss ( 8 comments ) | Trackback | More from:July 22, 2003IBM's Continues Grid PushBy: Ahmar AbbasCouple of articles on IBM’s Grid Computing activities. This one talks about the recent addition of grid computing capabilities to IBM’s Websphere product.
Computerworld has a short interview with Tom Hawk who is the general manager running the grid computing business unit.
Link | 22 July 03 @ 08:35 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from:July 21, 2003Grid Momentum Builds in JapanBy: Ahmar AbbasUnited Devices today announced a distribution agreement with Sumisho Electronics, an IT integrator in Japan. Sumisho expects to sell at least 2000 licenses this year. The majority owners of Sumisho are Sumitomo Corporation (62%) and Nissho Electronics Corporation (20%). Selling grid middleware to just the Sumitomo group of companies could be a lucrative business in it of itself. United Devices, today also announced an expanded distribution partnership with NTT DATA Corporation to sell and provide professional service support for United Devices’ Grid MP Enterprise software platform. NTT Data has been using the United Devices’ GridMP platform for its Cell Computing project. With Japanese companies spending over US $80B a year on product development, an early foothold in the market through partnerships with leading SI’s could both be a tactical and strategic success for UD. Link | 21 July 03 @ 10:51 | Discuss ( 17 comments ) | Trackback | More from: Grid Customers & MarketJuly 20, 2003Grid Looking Glass Index - Week Ending 7/19/2003 - 310.62 Up 8.7%By: Ahmar Abbas
The historical GLG Index stats and index explanation is here.
Key Event: New York Times Article on Grid Computing on June 15, 2003 helped push the index up this week. See graph by clicking More...Link | 20 July 03 @ 08:57 | Discuss ( 21 comments ) | Trackback | More from: GLG IndexJuly 17, 2003Could your computer be a criminal?By: Ahmar AbbasA very interesting story on MSNBC about a new set computer programs that will hijack end user PC’s to serve up porn, steal credit card information and even relay spam. Link | 17 July 03 @ 06:27 | Discuss ( 18 comments ) | Trackback | More from: Grid ApplicationsJuly 16, 2003Size Matters says the US CongressBy: Ahmar AbbasGrant Gross has an interesting article in ITWorld on yesterday’s hearing conducted by the Science Committee of the US House of Representatives on the state of supercomputing in the United States. The Congress is unsettled by the fact that the Japanese now have the fastest supercomputer on this earth and wants to make sure that all government policies are aligned for the United States to again have the biggest, and baddest supercomputer in the world. Japan’s massive Earth Simulator Supercomputer, has peak processing capacity of 40 Tera Flops, while the next closest one, the ASCI Q at Los Alamos National Labs has peak processing capacity of 20 Tera Flops. I attended a portion of the hearing (it started 20 minutes late) which was being webcast live from the floor of the Congress. Lots of discussion on relationship of grid computing and supercomputers and whether one is the substitute for the other. I however, disagree with Grant that the hearing turned into an argument between merits of grids versus standalone supercomputers. I think Raymond Orbach of DOE, Peter Freeman of the NSF and Dan Reed of NCSA were pretty articulate in explaining the difference between the two as well as the reasons for investment in both technologies. I hope in the quest for size, the Congress will not start dictating technology choices. The competitive position of the US remains quite intact given that 250 of the Top 500 supercomputers are based in the US as compared to 40 in Japan and 153 in Europe. I think the hearing would definitely have been more lively if Jim Gray or Gordon Bell, both star researchers at Microsoft were asked to testify. They argued recently that federal money would be better spent directly on the scientific research teams that are the largest users of supercomputers, by shifting the financing to vast data-storage systems instead of building ultrafast computers. Link | 16 July 03 @ 12:01 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from:July 15, 2003Back to The Future - Thoughts from Supernova 2003 Series (Part I of III)By: Ahmar AbbasSimon Phipps, who carries the title of Chief Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems, noted in his talk at Supernova that many technologies don’t get it right the first time around and usually fail. He quoted Paul Saffo of the Institute of the Future who says that technologies must fail at least twice before being successful. Social Software, such as Weblogs and wikis, are not new technologies and have been around for years. However, they become relevant today because there is now a massively connected society that can now use these tools. Unlike some in the crowd, I actually didn’t get perturbed by Simon’s assertions. More so than not, we regularly extract technologies from the past (failed or not) and make them useful (or usable) in the present. Take the case of communications technology of today. While the digeratis have been talking about the digital revolution and that awful digital divide, the truth is that the digital revolution has actually gone analog. The core communication infrastructure, the metro networks, the trans-continental and trans-oceanic links have all adopted optical technologies - which are of course very analog. Or consider that after years of being enamored with electronics - we find that some of the big network switches that will power the next generations of networks are, in fact, mechanical. Okay, I exaggerate here a bit, but these switches are powered by MEMS technology, which clearly has characteristics of dynamic mechanical systems. So I don’t disagree with techno-pundits when they say that utility computing is nothing more than resuscitated service bureaus of the past or that grid computing is nothing more than the second coming of distributed computing. I somewhat even concur with Simon and Paul in that technologies are generally more successful in their second or third coming. Though, I believe that in vast number of cases, the successes occur not only due to the capabilities of the technology itself but also because its re-introduction is under a new set of conducive circumstances. In other words its the right technology being offered at the right time. What then makes this the right time for grid computing and utility computing? The cost to run the information technology infrastructure is outstripping any productivity gains that are being derived from it. Enterprises today are in the midst of what I earlier referred to as IT Ecophagy. Grid computing and utility computing tackle this problem on two fronts. Grid computing increases productivity of the enterprise by harnessing its unused resources to accelerate various corporate tasks. Utility computing allows companies to reduce operational overhead by outsourcing infrastructure and in turn paying for it when it is actually used. Link | 15 July 03 @ 12:01 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from:July 14, 2003New York Times Covers Grid ComputingBy: Ahmar AbbasNew York Times (registration required) not only got a new editor today, but it looks like they just discovered grid computing. Steve Lohr has a piece in the Science section on grid computing. It is largely a historical piece on some of the earliest grid computing efforts. The article gives the impression that grid computing is still stuck in government research labs and far from being of commercial use. Somewhat sloppy and superficial reporting I must say! There - I got to bash the New York Times also! The article does however give due to credit to Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman for their contribution to the field. Link | 14 July 03 @ 08:54 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from:July 13, 2003Grid Looking Glass Index - Week Ending 7/12/2003 - 285.75 Up 0.38%By: Ahmar Abbas
The historical GLG Index stats and index explanation is here.
Link | 13 July 03 @ 11:15 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from: GLG IndexJuly 10, 2003ISV's Need to get on the GridBy: Ahmar AbbasThis article in CIO Magazine is pointing out that unless ISV’s get on board with grid computing - they technology will probably not be able to deliver on its promises. This is a topic that I have highlighted many times - I doesn’t matter how good the grid technology is - if there aren’t applications that can use it - it might as well not exist. Link | 10 July 03 @ 02:13 | Discuss ( 16 comments ) | Trackback | More from: Grid Applications |
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