Thebes

This is the final repost of missing GridsWatch postings:

So, it seems to me, imho, that the closely held definition of the word grid by the keepers of truth in the grid world, combined with the ham-handed misuse of the term by vendors, has pretty much killed "Grid". At least the word, but not the concept.

I don't find it surprising. The original software was built to satisfy a specific use case. A small group of well funded big science academic researchers gobbling up all the resources they can lay their hands on. Some papers and a couple of big books later, we have a highly complex system that only a developer could love. But...the word got buzz, it was exciting, excellent analogies were built (power grid, transit grid), stories grew up around the concept. So corporations got curious and started asking, and vendors starting writing their own definitions.

The most successful grids in the world aren't. They emulate security by limiting how many scientists can ask questions. The rules are that the scientist has to have altruistic needs and a good story. If the story is good enough, these grids can attract joe and jill computer owners to connect. GU is the 115th largest team on World Community Grid based upon a 5 point extra credit assignment given to the Intro to CS for non-majors class.

It's time to evaluate the use cases and build something valuable. A computational Internet. A place where owners of resources can allow groups of researchers to run applications safely. If you want your computer to be used to help cure cancer, you should have the power to give ALL cancer researchers access.

All it takes is a way to prove a person is a cancer researcher. Resource owners don't need to know each researcher's name, they just need to know where cancer research is being performed. Identity providers at each research center can handle proving whether or not a person is a cancer researcher.

SAML provides the tools to do this, but tacking SAML solutions onto existing grid solutions adds more complexity. Let's see about making job schedulers, file systems access, sensors, and license managers SAML aware. Let's see about building a simple to join consortium of resources that publishes resources to be discovered by a resource discovery network made available to all researchers.

Let's make whatever replaces 'grid' look like the Internet. Even the playing field. Rip the grid out of the hands of big science and make shared resources available to everyone.

Arnie Miles