VISUALIZATION

An EU project hopes to realize the ultimate potential of Grid computing by creating a network that is intelligently aware of its components and of the domain it addresses, enabling quick and easy virtual collaboration. If successful, the InteliGrid project will deliver on the potential of Grid networks, which people and companies can plug into, use its resources, and find and share information based on its meaning. With funding from the European Commission’s IST program, the project aims to deploy this type of 'smart Grid' for a complex industry like aerospace, shipbuilding or construction, where large numbers of partners need to come together for a single, one-off project. "We hope that we can augment Grid technology to provide a stable and secure collaboration platform on one hand, and a platform into which players can plug in and get out rather quickly on the other," says Professor Žiga Turk, coordinator of the InteliGrid and researcher at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. "In addition to that, the Grid should be providing ICT resources on demand to support the irregular requirements over the design and production cycle." Ultimately, this will mean consortiums can quickly form one off 'virtual organisations' (VOs), acting like a single company across the Grid infrastructure. For this to be effective, however, computers must 'know' what data 'means'. "Since the 16th century, when architects started more regularly to use documentation to share designs, the meaning has been implicit. A line on paper is a line and it can stand for anything," says Prof Turk. He adds that computerized drafting did not change much in that respect. Humans understand what lines stand for and can make intelligent decisions about them. The need for understanding "But computers don't [understand]. For computers to assist more intelligently in the design process, the design must be composed of higher-level objects, such as walls, windows and so on. Applications and services can assist humans more intelligently if working with these meaningful objects," says Prof Turk. Similarly, the IT infrastructure for a virtual organization is quite complex and to manage it the infrastructure itself must know what it consists of, what services are there, and what resources are available to be used. "Not just how much processing speed or disk space a machine on the Grid can offer, but what services are there that can help with, for example, designing walls. So we need to bridge the semantics of the IT infrastructure and the semantics of the [industry] domain," says Prof Turk. In semantic computing computers can deal with meaningful objects. It is a huge topic in Web computing right now. Dr Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founding fathers of the Web, is currently devoting the majority of his creative energies into making The Semantic Web a reality. If he succeeds it will have a profound impact on society, perhaps more than the creation of the Internet itself. Information will no longer be tied simply to words that appear on the page. InteliGrid is making bold steps in semantic computing for VOs in complex industries. Its concern is not so much words but models of engineering products. The project has made a lot of progress so far, one year into its three-year cycle. "We have a very clear idea what the architecture of the system would look like and started with the development of some key components. The engineering Grid is set up, one can log into the portal, and there are some essential administration and engineering services already plugged in," says Prof Turk. Conceptualising knowledge Currently the project is focused on the selection of appropriate ontologies of the IT environment. Ontologies are a crucial element of the Semantic Grid; they are the foundation stones upon which meaning is built. Ontologies are an agreed upon selection of related concepts that denote real world objects within a computer system or a database. A kind of furniture of the world into which real world concepts can be orderly organised. "The ontology services are the key component of InteliGrid because it is there where humans, but more importantly, applications and services get the metadata about the IT environment and the domain that can be intelligently reasoned about in a machine," says Prof Turk. Ultimately, InteliGrid plans to deliver a demonstration of their system in 2007, when the project ends. It could be huge but there are quite a few uncertainties. "The impact, we hope, will be quite wide. We are accumulating the knowledge, building the infrastructure and the toolkits that will allow for a broad transition of the industry towards semantic, model-based, ontology-committed collaboration," says Prof Turk. "Of course, a lot also depends on the general directions in which the ICT infrastructures will be moving. But we hope InteliGrid will provide a strong case for the Grids being the mainstream collaboration paradigm." Grid computing was originally intended for this type of intense collaboration, but most applications of Grid technology centre on computationally-intensive computing, using the CPUs of a bunch of computers linked together to crunch through vast problems like tracking weather or the stock market, or analysing the petabytes of data created by particle accelerators. More immediately, the InteliGrid could have a huge impact on the way engineers work. "Some studies show that engineers and designers spend over 70 per cent of their time in non-value adding activities - like finding information, converting or re-keying data. What they like to do and what they are best at is creative designing. Projects like InteliGrid will allow them to spend more time at what they are best at," says Prof Turk. Prof Turk also believes InteliGrid will make airplanes, buildings and bridges safer and more efficient. And this will ultimately not only benefit the engineers and the architects but the entire population, he says. "After all, improvements in the built environment provide better living and working conditions for all - with multiple indirect benefits for the competitiveness and social standard," says Prof Turk.