The Grid is the computing and data management infrastructure that will provide the electronic underpinning for a global society in business, government, research, science and entertainment [1–5]. Grids, illustrated in Figure , integrate networking, communication, computation and information to provide a virtual platform for computation and data management in the same way that the Internet integrates resources to form a virtual platform for information. | 1 The Grid past present future Fran Berman 1 Geoffrey Fox 2 and Tony Hey3 4 1 San Diego Supercomputer Center and Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of California San Diego California United States 2Indiana University Bloomington Indiana United States 3EPSRC Swindon United Kingdom 4 University of Southampton Southampton United Kingdom THE GRID The Grid is the computing and data management infrastructure that will provide the electronic underpinning for a global society in business government research science and entertainment 1-5 . Grids illustrated in Figure integrate networking communication computation and information to provide a virtual platform for computation and data management in the same way that the Internet integrates resources to form a virtual platform for information. The Grid is transforming science business health and society. In this book we consider the Grid in depth describing its immense promise potential and complexity from the perspective of the community of individuals working hard to make the Grid vision a reality. Grid infrastructure will provide us with the ability to dynamically link together resources as an ensemble to support the execution of large-scale resource-intensive and distributed applications. Grid Computing - Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality. Edited by F. Berman A. Hey and G. Fox 2003 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBN 0-470-85319-0 10 FRAN BERMAN GEOFFREY FOX AND TONY HEY Data Advanced visualization Analysis Imaging instruments Computational resources Large-scale databases Figure Grid resources linked together for neuroscientist Mark Ellisman s Telescience application http Alpha . Large-scale Grids are intrinsically distributed heterogeneous and dynamic. They promise effectively infinite cycles and storage as well as access to instruments visualization devices and so on without regard to geographic location. Figure shows a typical early successful .
