INDUSTRY

The 20th Open Grid Forum Promotes Standards and Business Developments within Grid Computing Technologies: The Open Grid Forum, a vendor neutral community representing over 400 organisations in 50 countries, is pleased to announce that the UK will host the 20th Open Grid Forum (OGF20) on May 7th – 11th. The event will see end-users, developers and vendors from across the world join forces to help accelerate the adoption of grid technologies in science and industry. OGF20 will be co-located with the 2nd Enabling Grids for E-science (EGEE) User Forum, making a unique gathering of grid experts from around the world. In the UK, Grid Computing Now!, a three year government funded initiative, has been championing the use of grid computing in public and private sector organisations since February 2005. It is holding its first business orientated conference, ‘Grid Means Business’, at OGF20, which will focus on the business benefits offered by grid computing, providing a comprehensive overview and update on the state of adoption of these technologies in organisations across the world. “OGF20 gives us the perfect opportunity to showcase the potential of grid computing and show how it is underpinning some of the most dynamic IT infrastructures in the world,” said Ian Osborne, Project Director, Grid Computing Now! “I am confident that the real world examples and case studies covered in the ‘Grid Means Business’ stream will prove that grid can really reduce IT costs and provide a flexible, scaleable IT infrastructure to support business better.” The conference will include sessions introducing grid computing and addressing the benefits and challenges of the technology. They include: - Keynote presentations by Tony Hey, Vice President of Technical Computing at Microsoft and Mark Linesch, the President of the Open Grid Forum. - Presentations from executives at eBay, Colt Telecom, Citigroup, Oracle, BT and the 451 Group, and Micron. - User case studies highlighting business benefits focused on areas from paths to adoption, to security issues, collaborative grids and software licensing Narrow definitions of grid computing have often viewed it as an academic technology constrained to a laboratory environment, but this is far from the reality in today’s enterprise IT environment. Modern IT architectures from virtual computing to web services are dependant on a consolidated grid infrastructure. Organisations across the world are now able to demonstrate the benefits it has been delivering through events like OGF20 and the work of Grid Computing Now! “We are pleased to bring the world’s leading authorities in grid computing to the UK to discuss the latest developments in this area and showcase the potential of grid technologies” said Mark Linesch, President of the OGF. “I am excited by the momentum that is being achieved around each OGF event and believe that the programme for OGF20 is one of the strongest we have ever had.” The National e-Science Centre, University of Manchester and The National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS) are jointly hosting OGF20. Grid Computing Now! is hosting the Grid Means Business Programme. Registration details can be found at www.ogf.org