IBM said grid computing is moving beyond the early adopter phase andannounced today a series of “Think Grid” workshops to help its businesspartners learn more about creating, selling and using enterprise grids.
The three-day workshops will be held in IBM Innovation Centers in Hursley,UK; San Mateo, California; and Waltham, Massachusetts; and will be scheduled based ondemand, Leslie Givens, program director, Marketing & Communications, ISV &Developer Relations, told TechNewsWorld. They are open to developers andbusiness partners who are part of IBM’s PartnerWorld Industry Networks.
Demand-Driven
The program grew out of market demand, Mike Sheets, program manager ofIBM Innovation Center, told TechNewsWorld.
“It’s not IBM moving, it’s the adoption of the technology. We don’t see thisas a statement about our company, it’s about the growth of a technology.”IBM, which divested itself of its software business in 1999, sells thehardware, middleware and services that the grid requires. It relies onpartners for the software piece.
Last week, Dell, EMC, Intel andOracle announced a deal to develop grid computing technologyand establish best practice. The move, called “Project Megagrid,” is aneffort to develop a standard approach to building and deploying enterprisegrid computing infrastructures.
Globus Developers Launch Company
On Monday, the creators of the GlobusToolkit, the de facto standard for grid computing, went commercial, announcingthey had formed a company, Univa, to provide software, services and supportfor Globus software.
IBM’s workshops are targeted toward ISVs that sell grid computing capacityto their customers.
IBM said solutions architects at its innovation centers have helped morethan 25 ISVs ready their applications for grid. The company hopes to prepare40 more ISVs for grid use in 2005.
Industries that have spikes of demand for quick calculations requiring a lotof compute power, such as insurance and financial services companies andtechnical and scientific researchers, can benefit from grid computing, Sheetsaid, adding that the distributed computing model also works well forbusiness intelligence applications.
The workshops are designed around IBM’s philosophy of “recruit, enable andgo to market.” They will assist ISVs in everything from deciding whetherthey want to build a grid to doing proof of concept testing, Sheets said.
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