Users Put Grids on the Grill

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Storage Networking World (SNW) -- A panel of customers and vendors tried to demystify grid computing today at SNW, agreeing that grids are a productive but complicated method of managing storage.

"If you look at two or three technologies well known for conjecture, disagreement, and confusion as far as enterprise adoption, certainly the storage element of grid computing fits that description," said panel moderator, analyst Simon Robinson of The 451 Group. (See Gridding My Teeth and Enterprises Still Not Sold on Grid.)

That point became starkly clear when the panel was asked about the definition and misconceptions associated with grid computing. Most of the panelists had their own versions of both.

"The biggest misconception is worrying about the definition," added J.S. Hurley, head of grid evaluation and implementation at the Boeing Company. "I don't care about that. I need my problem solved."

"The biggest misconception is that it's tied purely to one form of computing," said Paul Strong, distinguished research scientist at eBay. "We view our data center as one grid. Infrastructure and applications run on it, and it's become network-centric. It's a mega-operating system, if you will."Vincent Franceschini, senior director of future technologies at Hitachi Data Systems and chairman of the SNIA grid initiative, said most organizations need to take time to understand what a grid is before trying to operate one.

"The misconception is it can be easily packaged and deployed," he said. "The truth is, it takes time to understand what a grid entails, specifically about your own infrastructure."

Franceschini warned that grid computing includes issues many people don't think about, such as "resource allocation, how to best serve applications, and software licensing."

Still, three users on the panel think grid computing is a good thing. Strong says having a grid architecture helps eBay manage and scale a storage environment that consists of 2 Pbytes of raw capacity and 75 volumes, and which grows by 10 Tbytes a week. He refers to eBay's grid as a "holistic view" of the storage and network infrastructure.

"Management of that kind of stuff is complicated and hard," he says. "We want to move away from caring about bits and bytes and blogs. The grid provides a common context for certifying a model to manage what we care about: storage devices and data. It lets us think about management and mapping data and using quality of service."Hurley agreed with the holistic approach. "Many of us have become global companies, and that's changed tremendously how we look at data," he says. "When we deal with partners, how do we let our vendors get access to the data in real time, but make sure only the right people get access?"

Another admin on the panel, Chris Leonetti of Microsoft Live, says grid is about "data portability and application portability.

"An application should not live in one place," he says. "Most services we support live in all eight of our data centers. If a customer wants to deploy a new application, we move it wherever and they have no idea where it is."

To make grids less complicated, Strong called for the development of standards for grid computing, especially for applications.

"If the industry doesn't come out with standards, we'll build stuff anyway," he says. "Some of us don't have a choice. We have problems that are too compelling and we can't wait."Coming up with standards for grid can be even more complicated than developing standards for storage. SNIA's Franceschini says it requires collaboration between his group and the Open Grid Forum, another standards body.

"The grid community has been working on a set of standards that aren't in line with what the enterprise folks are using so far," he says. "We agree on principle, it's a matter of having the industry agree on the next steps required."

Dave Raffo, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch