In 1994, we outlined our vision for wide-area distributed computing [1]: For over thirty years science fiction writers have spun yarns featuring worldwide networks of interconnected computers that behave as a single entity. Until recently such science fiction fantasies have been just that. Technological changes are now occurring which may expand computational power in the same way that the invention of desktop calculators and personal computers did | 10 From Legion to Avaki the persistence of vision Andrew S. Grimshaw 1 2 Anand Natrajan 2 Marty A. Humphrey 1 Michael J. Lewis 3 Anh Nguyen-Tuong 2 John F. Karpovich 2 Mark M. Morgan 2 and Adam J. Ferrari4 1 University of Virginia Charlottesville Virginia United States 2Avaki Corporation Cambridge Massachusetts United States 3State University of New York at Binghamton Binghamton New York United States 4Endeca Technologies Inc. Cambridge Massachusetts United States GRIDS ARE HERE In 1994 we outlined our vision for wide-area distributed computing 1 For over thirty years science fiction writers have spun yarns featuring worldwide networks of interconnected computers that behave as a single entity. Until recently such science fiction fantasies have been just that. Technological changes are now occurring which may expand computational power in the same way that the invention of desktop calculators and personal computers did. In the near future computationally This work partially supported by DARPA Navy contract N66001-96-C-8527 DOE grant DE-FG02-96ER25290 DOE contract Sandia LD-9391 Logicon for the DoD HPCMOD PET program DAHC 94-96-C-0008 DOE D459000-16-3C DARPA GA SC H607305A NSF-NGS EIA-9974968 NSF-NPACI ASC-96-10920 and a grant from NASA-IPG. Grid Computing - Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality. Edited by F. Berman A. Hey and G. Fox 2003 John Wiley Sons Ltd ISBN 0-470-85319-0 266 ANDREW S. GRIMSHAW ETAL. demanding applications will no longer be executed primarily on supercomputers and single workstations using local data sources. Instead enterprise-wide systems and someday nationwide systems will be used that consist of workstations vector supercomputers and parallel supercomputers connected by local and wide area networks. Users will be presented the illusion of a single very powerful computer rather than a collection of disparate machines. The system will schedule application components on processors manage data transfer and provide communication and .
