EGA hammers out grid interoperability reference model

May 10, 2005 —

The Enterprise Grid Alliance published a reference model for grid computing on Tuesday. The alliance hopes the model will make it easier for businesses to make use of grid computing in their data centers.

The document comprises three parts: a lexicon of grid terms, a model for classifying the management and lifecycles of grid components, and a set of use cases demonstrating requirements for grid computing. It is available for download from the alliance's Web site, www.gridalliance.org.

The model is not biased towards any one vendor, and assumes no particular technology or implementation, the alliance said. It plans to update the text to take account of new products and developments in the market.

The alliance was formed in April 2004 with the goal of developing the use of grids in enterprise data centers. Eight companies are on its board: EMC Corp.; Fujitsu-Siemens Computers GmbH; Hewlett-Packard Co.; Intel Corp.; NEC Corp.; Network Appliance Inc.; Oracle Corp.; and Sun Microsystems Inc. Other supporters include Advanced Micro Devices Inc.; Cisco Systems Inc.; Citrix Systems Inc.; Dell Inc.; Novell Inc.; and Unisys Corp. Notable for their absence from the alliance are heavy hitters Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp.

IDG News Service