The Open Grid Forum is a non-profit consortium of public and private organizations and individuals dedicated to accelerating the adoption of grids worldwide. As President and CEO of OGF, Mr Mark Linesch is a front-row witness to how Grid Computing is evolving to become a mainstream technology for business use. He shares his views on where the trend is heading.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Open Grid Forum (OGF), Mr Mark Linesch

1. Grid Computing has traditionally been the auspices of HPC sectors like academia and R&D. How is this trend changing and which industries do you see adopting Grid Computing for mainstream use?

Mark: Grid architectures, technologies and solutions have demonstrated real scientific and business value and will continue to evolve and mature when implemented within a single data center, across multiple data centers and across multiple organizations. However, like any emerging technology, Grid has taken time to mature and become suitable for different types of applications. All emerging applications and technologies start someplace, and grids started in high-performance computing and have continued to evolve and move more mainstream.

I often talk about the three phases of grid adoption: the early adopters, then moving to a proven solution phase, and then finally to more pervasive adoption. And it’s clear that the scientific and engineering communities were first out of the gate and provided a foundation for early adoption and proven solutions that the broader industry can build upon. Today, grids are becoming well established in enterprise areas that are closely associated with high-performance computing (Finance, Pharma, Manufacturing, Media, Energy).

We are also seeing the concept of grids moving from specific departments or functions within the enterprise, to the broader IT data center environment. I think this progression is very natural and predictable as grids “cross the chasm” from specialized applications to mainstream enterprise architectures.

2. What catalysts are needed to drive the mainstream adoption of Grid Computing?

Mark: Moving to mainstream adoption requires the “lessons learned” from early adoption, the “success patterns” from proven solutions and breaking through people, process, policy, and technology barriers that include software licensing, security/administration policy, and social barriers associated with distributed systems. For instance, software licensing is primarily a policy issue (how should software vendors evolve their licensing policies to balance their need for financial success with the needs of their customers for licensing flexibility in shared infrastructure environments).

Standards are particularly important for broader, more mainstream adoption because they enable organizations to quickly and inexpensively connect grids within their organizations and/or interoperate with grids in external organizations (e.g., trusted partners, research collaborators, utility providers). Breaking through these barriers is challenging and ensuring standards are in place is the work of the Open Grid Forum and our international community of users, developers and solution providers.

3. In terms of open standards of Grid software and applications, are there any initiatives to foster greater interoperability among developers, organisations and governments?

Mark: As our name implies, the Open Grid Forum is a combination of two simple but synergistic concepts: Open Forum: Open Standards. As an “open forum” OGF brings the grid community together - to identify and align requirements; workshop solutions; and communicate progress. As an “open standards” organization, OGF aligns with broadly adopted industry standards while developing new specifications to enable grid software interoperability.  Both aspects of OGF are involved in helping to bring people together to break down barriers and foster greater interoperability.

Regarding specific examples or initiatives to foster greater interoperability, let me give you several examples:

• From a global perspective, OGF holds three major events per year in different parts of the world where grid specifications and best practices are advanced and where uses of grids in many scientific, research, government and business enterprises are explored. Recently, we have been exploring how to better align the requirements of key communities (e.g. Industry, Research communities) with our OGF Technical Strategy and Roadmap during these events.
  
  From an Industry perspective, we have been holding a series of workshops with members of the Finance, Pharma, Manufacturing, Telco, and Aerospace communities. These have been very productive in understanding requirements and prioritizing work within OGF. From a Research perspective, we have established the Grid Interoperation NOW (GIN) group as a mechanism to discuss practical, real world problems associated with interoperation between major grid infrastructures around the world such as EGEE, TeraGrid, the Naregi project and others.
  
  The purpose of the GIN group is to organize and manage a set of interoperation efforts among production Grid projects. This project has a short term goal of planning and implementing interoperation in specific areas such as job description and execution, data location and movement, authentication and authorization, etc. It is also proving to be a very valuable “sounding board’ for dialoging about requirements and priorities with our Standards Working Groups and newly established Technical Strategy Committee. 



• From a local perspective, the newly established Singapore Grid Forum (SGF) provides a great opportunity for local and regional outreach and global alignment. OGF is an organization that must align globally but also communicate and collaborate locally. SGF is a great vehicle for collaboration between developers, organisations and government - focusing on issues and developments that are important to the Singapore and broader regional community. Bringing everyone around the same table to share ideas, learn from each other, align efforts and promote adoption is critical from a local, regional and global level and I am very excited about the partnership we have established with SGF and the Singapore grid community.

4. Which country is a good example of widespread adoption of promoting Grid computing? How has it been successful?

Mark: As I travel around the world, I am continually amazed at the progress being made with grid technologies in both research and industry. Regionally, there are aggressive programs in place to establish grid infrastructures for scientific research in many parts of the world and this is progressing quite well. The US, European Union and Japan have been particularly successful in promoting grid technologies, standards and adoption as evidenced by the success of organizations such as UK eScience,  EGEE, TeraGrid, Open Science Grid and Naregi.

The EU has also been aggressive in promoting the synergies between the public and private sectors. At our recent OGF20 meeting in Manchester UK, we had over 900 participants and a very well attended industry track titled “Grids Mean Business”. I was particularly encouraged by the participation from the London and New York financial communities and the successes they are having in utilizing grid technologies to support their trading operations.

In my recent trip to Singapore, I was also very impressed with the partnership between public and private sectors and the focus toward pursuing on-demand, pay-per-use grids for enterprises of all sizes. Incubating the ecosystem for market-based, utility-oriented services is a challenging opportunity that can utilize the unique strengths of Singapore and create an even more vibrant business community and public/private partnership.

5. What are the main differences in concerns and requirements of commercial entities compared with those of the research community? How does the OGF balance those concerns and issues?

Mark: There are many differences between commercial entities and research communities but there are also many common interests and themes.

Differences include things such as style of work, types of applications, and end objectives. Research is a team sport today so a collaborative work style and data sharing is critical. Applications used by researchers are usually a mix of packaged applications and internally developed tools and algorithms and the end objective is often scientific discovery and innovation. Industry is also collaborative but more process-driven in it’s utilization of IT. Industry in general utilizes more packaged applications, more transaction-oriented workloads and is driven by the need for business advantage as an end objective.

Each scientific discipline or industry also has many unique aspects to their particular community. However, many of us are also users or providers of grid technologies and this is what unites us in our common mission of accelerating adoption worldwide. Users from research and industry are interested in capabilities that are simple to purchase, easy to use and empowering. Providers that support these users are interested in capabilities that are cost-efficient, flexible, “rock solid” and secure. For both users and providers it’s about appreciating the diversity of our international community while working on knocking down the common barriers to adoption that we share.

Balance is clearly an important theme in serving the needs of our diverse community. OGF has dedicated functions that focus on the requirements of industry and commercial enterprises, as well as research, scientific and education communities. These functions help influence and complement our standards efforts – enabling a focus on the unique needs of each community, while bringing all of the communities together to share ideas and develop open standards for software interoperability.