The grid: platform for e-science, e-business, and e-Life

Abstract

For 10 years now, Grid computing has been the exclusive realm of researchers seeking to harness compute power for massive computational simulation challenges. However, recently, commercial enterprises too are beginning to focus on the tremendous business benefits that grid computing will yield. Yet it's still in an early stage of its evolution. "The Grid" has the potential to become a global web of ubiquitous electronic services which will improve infrastructure utilization, increase access and integration of huge amounts of data, enable new levels of communication and collaboration, and provide for the creation of new applications in escience, e-business, and e-life. So, what is grid computing, and what is "the Grid"?