The Hindu Business Line : Computers of the grid, unite!

WRITING in Chicago Sun-Times (www.suntimes.com) on May 2, Science Reporter Jim Ritter declares that Fermilab, `the world's most powerful subatomic particle accelerator', has 250 trillion reasons to outsource data. To know `how', read on.

The lab "smashes together subatomic particles at nearly the speed of light in order to better understand the structure of matter and laws of nature," and Dzero, a research team in the lab, has been recording about 4 million particle collisions a day. In the last about three years, they have `250 trillion bytes of data', equivalent to about 5 lakh Britannica sets `to fill a shelf stretching from Chicago to Pittsburgh', describes Ritter.

To crunch this data, Fermilab uses grid computing, and enlists the services of labs and universities around the world, including possibly Brazil and India. The promise is that grid computing will analyse within six months the whole pile, and even help find "the elusive Higgs boson, a subatomic particle known as the `holy grail of physics,'" explains the report.

"Grid computing works somewhat like an electric power grid. Computers in different locations are connected in such a way that they act as one large computing system," is a simple exposition by Ritter.

"Government labs, scientific groups and private industries are using grid computing in fields as diverse as medicine, engineering, drug development, and investment portfolios."

On grid computing, again, is Altair Engineering's recent communiqué. It explains that grid computing is not a new concept but actually a new name applied to an evolved set of concepts.

"In the early 1970s, computer scientists had an idea to connect several computers together to act as one computer. They called this field `network operating systems.'

In the late 1970s, it was reborn as `distributed operating systems,' with the goal of seamlessly connecting computers to look like one big computer."

What happened thereafter, in the 1980s and 1990s, is that we had Networks of Workstations or NOWs and Metacomputing, informs Altair.

Now, however, when you talk of large-scale connection of computers `into a larger whole' it would most probably be grid computing.

How is this different from its predecessors? Altair points out two significant aspects: One, grids explicitly target computers in separate administrative domains.

"Each participant in a grid has complete control over its own resources (use policy, security policy, what software to install, and so on)," unlike as in distributed operating systems of the past, where all computers had to run identical software. And two, grids go beyond computing and "provide a seamless interface combining computers, networks, information (databases and storage), sensors (e.g. real-time data collection) and people (collaboration)."

So, if you hear a manager say, "I need 512 computers, LS-DYNA, the crash test facility, networks connecting them, fast access to the database with all the previous crash test data, and Tom, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday," an example that Altair's note cites, you know it's a call for grid computing action.

A sobering thought from Altair is that the true promise of grid computing probably won't be available for at least another 5-10 years. Yet, the concept is behind a few nascent commercial applications such as workload management to connect geographically distributed enterprises.

Altair's PBS Pro is "specifically designed for the improved utilisation of IT resources and skills within grid computing networks," informs the company.

The product was `originally developed to manage aerospace computing resources at the NASA Ames Research Center,' and it can intelligently queue and schedule "computation workload across complex networks to optimise hardware and software utilisation while minimising job turn-around times," I learn.

It's a middleware, `between compute intensive applications and networked hardware operating systems'.

The company identifies that India, like the rest of the world, is moving towards `cluster-based computing', with the need to pool and provide access to global engineering resources, and also optimally use heterogeneous and distributed compute networks.

So, if your consultant talks about grid computing, be ready with some knowledge, unless you decide to end up grid locked.

Honoured IT innovations

A site worth visiting by IT professionals is www.cwheroes.org. "Established in 1988, Computerworld Honors Program searches for and recognises individuals who have demonstrated vision and leadership as they strive to use information technology in innovative ways across 10 categories," informs the site.

The categories are: "Business and Related Services; Education and Academia; Environment, Energy and Agriculture; Finance, Insurance and Real Estate; Government and Non-Profit Organisations; Manufacturing; Media, Arts and Entertainment; Medicine; Science; and Transportation."

June 6 is when the finalists are to be honoured, and 160 laureates received medals in the first week of April, and "their case studies formally became part of the Global Archives."

And 134 institutions are actively engaged in the preservation, protection and dissemination of these materials and have been designated Members of the Computerworld Honors Global Archives and Academic Council, informs the site.

It is heartening that the following figure under India: Cognizant Corporate Library, Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad and Lucknow), Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay), Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology, and the University of Madras.

The award becomes a talking point, as in the case of a press release from Sapient. It informs that "Essent Energy, a major European utility, and Sapient, a leading business services and technology consultancy" got the kudos for "the success of ParkMaster, a comprehensive energy trading and risk management system".

Sapient's gas optimisation solution gives Essent real-time visibility into its entire gas portfolio, one learns. A statistic that can have your accountant fall over is that the solution resulted in cost savings to Essent of EUR 4 million within 24 hours, paying for itself the first day it went live!

I go back to the `honors' site to search the archive for `India' among the 2004 collection, and right on top shows `Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS)' of the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), as a `finalist' in `transportation' category.

BrightStor of Wipro Spectramind eServices P Ltd ranks as `laureate' in the `business & related services' category for "automated backup and recovery of vital databases spread throughout an organisation lowers costs and expedited recovery from emergency situations".

Wish we had more such cases to showcase in the IT hall of fame each year.

ITworks@TheHindu.co.in

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