Deal Boosts IBM's Grid Computing PushDeal Boosts IBM's Grid Computing Push

IBM last week said it will provide hardware and software to the British government as part of a $50 million effort to link high-powered computers used in scientific research to a national British computing grid that will act as a single virtual supercomputer. At the same time, IBM is aggressively looking for ways to push grid technology for use in business computing environments.

IBM will sell Oxford University a storage controller and middleware from The Globus Project, an open-source developer of grid software. The tools will link the school's storage devices to the grid. IBM also will deliver 16 Intel-based xSeries 330 Linux servers to Oxford--one of nine U.K. universities participating in the National Grid project, which is expected to be completed within two years. IBM last week said it sold 200 xSeries servers to the Netherlands for its five-university grid under construction.

IBM and other vendors for years have been helping customers develop grids for demanding scientific applications. Grids use specialized software that lets computers share processing power over existing networks. But new technology can be applied to grids to make them easier and cheaper to implement, says Mike Nelson, IBM's director for Internet strategy and technology. "It's approaching the level of something that can be used for production computing," he says.

IBM is developing applications and middleware that give servers self-diagnostic and self-managing capabilities under an initiative dubbed eLiza. "Getting machines to work together and building in redundancy and reliability is key to this," Nelson says.

Last month, Sun Microsystems said it would release its grid-management software to the open-source community. But it could be years before businesses deploy grid technology broadly, says Cheryl Currid, president of research firm Currid & Co. "It's not going to happen before IT managers are comfortable with security, stability, and reliability."