ACADEMIA

According to IECnet, a collaboration between the National e-Science Centre and Intellect, the majority of UK CIOs do not realise the potential and business gains from implementing supercomputing by usig Grid technologies. Intellect believes that the time is right to exploit the UK's clear advantage in Grid Computing Technology. Typical benefits realised by early adopters in companies of all sizes include:- > Improved Return on Assets - leverage existing investments across the business and realise savings against existing budgets > Increased Scalability - improve the performance of compute bound tasks, such as portfolio analysis, design simulation, digital rendering, etc.. through leveraging the Intra-Enterprise Grid capabilities to more efficiently use existing resources > Flexibility - building a web-services based enterprise architecture which enables the rapid development and deployment of applications, abstracted from the hardware platform > Managing Complexity - develop a more effective management system for representing the Enterprise Information Infrastructure and maintain a more effective means of assigning work to those parts of the network which have the capacity “There is huge potential for the exploitation of grid within the UK,” said Ian Osborne, Intellect IECnet manager. “Not only will grid enable us to strengthen our position as a global services provider, it will facilitate the development of new delivery mechanisms for existing services. Reaching out and educating CIOs of the possible grid applications and business benefits to be reaped will be a primary objective of IECnet.” UK Governemnt has invested £250 million in the e-Science research programme, developing a globally competitive national information infrastructure with the knowledge to exploit it. Intellect’s academic partner in IECnet, the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh, is a world leader in the application of Grid Computing Technology and is developing open source standards compliant software to enable its widespread adoption. IECnet is funded by the DTI and is governed by an Advisory Council with members from all parts of the industry. In addition to its academic partner, IECnet’s industrial partners represent the world's leading suppliers of Grid Computing equipment and enabling software, the building blocks of the future Grid. IECNet has also enrolled leading edge users with real practical experience of Grid Computing Technology. To address the lack of understanding among UK CIOs of grid’s benefits, IECnet announced today the launch of a new website www.gridcomputingnow.org as a resource to those seeking to apply grid technologies. Interested parties will be able to browse a combination of articles and case studies written for the project, review “live” news from the industry and access several reference sites including updates on Standards and Patents. They will also be able to register their interest in future events. The IECnet project is an Inter-Enterprise Computing (IEC) Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) aimed at transferring knowledge about Grid Computing Technologies to the UK Public and Private Sectors. The project is a collaboration between Intellect and the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh It was established in February 2005 and is governed by an Advisory Council which incorporates membership from Supply Industry Leaders (e.g. Oracle, IBM, HP, Intel, BT, Microsoft, etc.), Experts from the e-Science Community, DTI Officers and user representatives from early adopters in the targeted user communities.