On Wednesday, Microsoft indicated it doesn't want to be left behind as the grid bandwagon gets moving. Microsoft has dipped its toes into the grid world before, but the software giant decided to back one of the key grid organisations, the Globus Project, whose Globus Toolkit software lets organisations set up grids and manage grid jobs. Microsoft said Wednesday that it is funding Globus with $1m to make sure the toolkit runs on Windows XP and on its .Net Web services software infrastructure. While $1m isn't much to Microsoft, the support is interesting given that the toolkit is an open-source project -- and the shared-software philosophy is one that Microsoft has historically loathed. "This will help the toolkit be more rapidly and widely adopted beyond the research community," said Carl Kesselman, a seminal grid thinker, Globus leader and director of the Center for Grid Technologies at the University of Southern California. IBM, though -- with respected research groups and a product line broader than any other computing company -- is probably more significant in the grid game. Grids hold the promise of getting more use out of a given amount of hardware, but Sam Palmisano, IBM's soon-to-be chief executive, predicts that there still will be demand for servers, storage, software and services to tie it all together. IBM said on Wednesday that it would build grid abilities into its WebSphere e-commerce software, its Tivoli management software, and its servers and storage systems. One key standard in the works is the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA), a method of marrying Web services technology to grid technology described in a paper written by the Globus leaders and IBM. Version 3.0 of the Globus Toolkit will support OGSA, Globus has said, and IBM said WebSphere will provide a foundation for running programs using the OGSA standard, IBM said. On the hardware front, all IBM servers will come with the Globus Toolkit. And storage systems using the iSCSI standard for transferring storage information over Internet Protocol (IP) networks will work within grids. Finally, IBM's much-envied Global Services division will offer consulting help to plan, install, run and manage grids. IBM's top management believes grids are the natural evolution of computing. "The grid is the ultimate method whereby you can establish this seamless, open standard" computing model, Palmisano said on Wednesday in a speech at IBM's PartnerWorld 2002 in San Francisco. "This computing model will not be an evolution from the client-server base." The need for grids partly comes from increasing Web traffic, Palmisano said. Most people log on to the Web with PCs and manually navigate. In the future, the number of access devices will explode. In addition, Web sites and databases will be increasingly interlinked, allowing consumers to switch from one database to another quickly. To be able to accommodate these customers, companies will have to fortify their back-end computing capabilities -- the sort of thing that led to a financial crisis for many start-ups -- or rent grid time. Others are in the game as well. Platform Computing, which has sold its in-house grid computing software for years for calculation jobs such as chip design or pharmaceutical research, has embraced the Globus Toolkit and plans to sell it along with services. Platform got a boost when Compaq Computer announced it would use its software. Platform on Tuesday announced the beta, or test, version of its Globus Toolkit product. One of the early grid companies, Entropia, also is backing Globus. And as expected, Avaki, which sells grid software, submitted a proposal called the Secure Grid Naming Protocol at the Global Grid Forum to standardise how files and data are stored on grids. HP also has a business focus on grids with its planetary computing research. News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this report.
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