Grid Computing: Baby Steps

NEW YORK -- The IT industry could still be as much as 10 years away from sharing a broad range of applications across complex grid architectures, according to experts on hand here at Data Center Forum 2004, sponsored by NDCF.

There has been a great deal of grid hype over the last few months, but it may be premature. With standards for grid computing still being developed, users feel that it could be a number of years before we will see a wide range of applications run on any enterprise grid architecture.

Scott McDonald, director of business development at Tyco Telecommunications, feels that the standards issue is key. At the moment, lack of standards means that people are developing their own applications but at the same time keeping an eye on what standards are coming out,” he says.

“The industry could be five to 10 years from a standard [grid-based application] product set."

Brandon Knicely, president of service operations at service provider MarsCom Ltd., agrees that grid computing is still up in the air, observing that “it’s a very fragmented industry. In terms of enterprise adoption -- we’re still in the education stage.”Shawn Nunley, director of technology development at NetScaler Inc. feels these factors make it all the more difficult for application vendors like Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), SAP AG (NYSE/Frankfurt: SAP), and Siebel Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: SEBL).

Nunley also believes that recent improvements in application delivery technology, such as compressing data before its gets encrypted, are not exactly helping the grid cause. “We’re starting to solve some fundamental problems that are making grid computing less urgent,” he says. “We have found ways to make the applications work with today’s networks.”

Despite having some major-league backers such as Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), there is still a degree of uncertainty about the grid concept. Earlier this year, for example, a number of users expressed concern about how grid computing would work with their existing software licensing agreements (see Software Licensing Gridlock).

— James Rogers, Site Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum