INDUSTRY

Grid computing moved out of the laboratory and into mainstream commercial computing applications in 2004, says a new market research study released by the Insight Research Corporation. Grid computing, a type of distributed system, makes it possible to share computing resources across networks, creating what amounts to virtual super computers. Insight's analysis of the grid industry was confirmed recently by the announcement on the part of commercial computing stalwarts IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems that they were forming the Globus Consortium to drive grid technology into mainstream commercial applications. According to the report, Grid Computing: A Vertical Market Perspective 2005-2010, Insight estimates worldwide grid spending will grow from $714.9 million in 2005 to approximately $19.2 billion in 2010 market. Grid spending was examined in 14 vertical industries, with a majority of near term grid spending in manufacturing and financial service industries. Spending estimates could increase at a faster rate, Insight cautions, if draft specifications being developed as part of the Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) to foster convergence of the Web service and grid computing communities succeed. "The WSRF is going to provide the blueprint for moving the Internet to the next stage in its evolution, expanding it from a way to link machines to a highly functional computing resource, a transactional virtual machine," says Insight Research president Robert Rosenberg. "Web services today are 'stateless,' they have no memory of what a program requests from invocation to invocation, and they are also 'transient' in the sense that data presented to one client can't be seen or changed by another client. If the WSRF succeeds, issues such as 'statelessness' and 'transience' will be solved, and Web services will enter the realm of virtual computing," Rosenberg concluded. A free report excerpt, table of contents, and ordering information for Grid Computing: A Vertical Market Perspective 2005-2010 can be found online at http://www.insight-corp.com/reports/grid05.asp. The full, 176-page report is available immediately for $3995 (hard copy). Adobe Acrobat (PDF) report licenses are also offered. Visit our Web page above or call (973) 541-9600 for details.