How Practical Is Grid Computing?

碧城仙

转自： http://www.cio.com/archive/070103/hook_sidebar_3.html
主题：多么实用的网格计算?
概述：除非您能熟练的操作源代码,否则不会对它不爽; CIO（美国产业工会联合会）对网格计算的看法
出自：《CIO Magazine》
发表时间：2003年7月1日

内容：

How Practical Is Grid Computing?

Unless you are comfortable manipulating source code, not very.

GRID COMPUTING is following a well-worn path previously traveled by any number of world-beating technologies such as the Internet and open-source software. They start in academia and gather strength in the obscurity of the research world. Then they're adopted by leading-edge businesses, from whence they emerge into the mainstream. Grid computing has reached the third step. Those fearless Ferraris of corporate computing, financial services companies, are beginning to use grids for real business applications that will have real impact on customer service, internal productivity and computing costs.

At J.P. Morgan Chase's investment banking division, Steve Neiman, head of information architecture, is building a grid with the help of IBM and grid computing specialist Platform Computing that combines a number of different Morgan product applications, such as foreign exchange and equity, that used to exist separately. Before the grid, if employees wanted to sell these products in combination, they had to coordinate the computing transactions in isolation and combine them manually. But by rewriting the applications to run on a single grid architecture, traders can now coordinate all the products to deliver them faster, with fewer IT people needed to manage the applications. Neiman expects to see a 40 percent reduction in overall IT costs for the applications.

Neiman can do this for a number of reasons. First of all, he can count on the support of J.P. Morgan Chase employees who know that better IT butters their paychecks. He doesn't have to worry about "server huggers," users reluctant to turn their precious servers over to a grid where someone else's applications and computing needs might threaten their own.

Most important, Neiman doesn't have to worry about getting access to the source code of the applications he's painstakingly rewriting to work with a grid because J.P. Morgan Chase writes all its own applications and has some of the world's best programmers. Most CIOs deal with packaged apps and wouldn't know how to begin to rewrite them to work on a grid. That's the showstopper for grid right now, says Neiman.

"Until the vendors write the applications for grid, widespread adoption won't happen," he says. "It's probably impossible to take someone's product and put it on a grid. You're asking for trouble. We tried that on a small scale, and we decided it was a very hard pull."
—CHRIS KOCH

[ Last edited by 碧城仙 on 2004-11-17 at 12:31 PM ]