Product Description

According to John Patrick, IBM's vice-president for Internet strategies, "thenext big thing will be grid computing."The purpose of this book will be to describe several interesting and uniqueaspects of this exciting new topic. Grid Computing is a type of parallel anddistributed system set-up that enables and encourages the sharing ofgeographically dispersed resources. In many ways, it represents theconvergence of supercomputing and web services. The book highlights manyachievements in this innovative computer science field, and it is intended to beof value to a wide spectrum of readers around the world regardless. IBM israpidly establishing itself as the global leader in the topic of Grid Computing.This book not only address IBM's leadership progress in the field, but otherglobal enterprise initiatives, specific areas of interests, synergies between manyenterprise partners in this field, and current/future deliveries in the field ofGrid Computing. Today, there is no other book like this one that explains thepromise and IBM's plans for this important initiative.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1329486 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Back Cover

• A business-focused guide to the grid computing revolution
• Best practices, case studies, and resources from IBM's experts
• Drive unprecedented value from your existing IT investments
• Simplify IT administration in heterogeneous environments
• Build flexible, resilient infrastructures that deliver resources instantly

IBM Business On Demand Series: Your business blueprint for leveraging the grid computing revolution.

When you turn on the light, the power grid delivers exactly what you need, instantly. What if computers and networks could work that way? Now they can...and that will transform the way you do business. Grid Computing is about the "Business on Demand" revolution: delivering the exact technology resources you need, anywhere, anytime, without complexity or high cost. You can do it all, starting right now, starting with your existing systems. Whether you're an executive, strategist, architect, technologist, or developer, this book will show you how.

• Master the fundamental concepts underlying grid and utility computing
• Learn how to start and which applications to start with
• Understand the state-of-the-art in technologies and standards
• Use grid computing to maximize the value of existing resources
• Build more flexible, resilient, and available operational infrastructures
• Deliver instantaneous access to data and resources on a "sense and respond" basis
• Eliminate the burden of administering disparate, non-integrated systems

In Grid Computing, leading IBM experts bring together best deployment practices, practical guidance on integrating existing resources, and up-to-the-minute case studies: all you need to drive business value from the grid computing revolution.

About the Author

JOSHY JOSEPH, Lead Developer in the IBM Systems Group Advanced Technologies organization, specializes in grid computing, autonomic computing, utility computing, and Web services. He is the author of several publications on Open Grid Services Infrastructure (OGSI) and Web services, and he is actively involved in the Globus Grid Computing project.

CRAIG FELLENSTEIN, Chief Architect and Executive Consultant for IBM Global Services Network Services, has worked with key IBM global customers to deploy very large infrastructures, Next Generation Web Services, and strategic service provider solutions. He is senior networking strategist for IBM's Business On Demand initiatives. He also wrote Business On Demand: Technology and Strategy Perspectives.

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Customer Reviews

Comprehensive Description, but too Heavyweight?
Grid computing is extensively described here as a means of providing high powered utility computing on demand. Currently, its potential is mostly unrealised. Many companies and universities have different grid implementations, as described by the authors. The universities' main motivation is to dragoon enough computing resources for hard research problems. While in the commercial sector, computer companies like IBM want to sell on demand access as a means of entering a hopefully vast new market.

The grid approaches in the book collectively can be contrasted with p2p computing. Grid systems tend to use more diverse and powerful hardware and relatively small number of users. Think of this as the high end, while p2p is low end (e.g. the SETI desktop application). The book describes the vast amount of effort that has gone into devising grid standards and the various toolkits, most notably Globus.

A potential problem which may occur to the reader of this book is the sheer complexity of the grid approach. Its proponents argue that this is necessary complexity. But perhaps a p2p methodology might be easier to understand and use.

An analogy is with the X.400 and X.500 email and directory standards. While these are used by some companies, many have not done so. Due to the complexity and slowness. Too heavyweight. The danger for grid computing is meeting a similar fate. It may end up occupying a small high value niche, but no more.

cheerleading more than technical
The reason I purchased this book was a review I read in the IEEE Software journal, that recommended highly this book as a technical book that even steps the reader through an example implementation GRID service. Well, the first part of the book is the usual "GRID vision" hand-waving how GRID-based computing will realize the concept of "utility computing" where you turn on the switch, and presto, all the computing cycles you were starving for, are there, running your scientific or engineering code or whatever...
The book unfortunately is not well-written. Far too often, sentences are not syntactically correct, obfuscating the authors' intents. The book is definitely not suited as a technical reference, because by reading it there is no way you can implement a GRID "HelloWorld" service. And even when you read Sotomayor's tutorial on GRID services, that actually does guide you through your first GRID service using Java WS-Core, all you've done is figure out how to implement Web-services running on GT4. No mention of distributed computing, how to take advantage of parallelism inherent in a computation etc. etc.
So, overall, the book serves mostly as a layman's (or manager's) introduction into what GRID-computing wishes it will eventually be.

> > > > Destined to be a classic book in its field.
The authors have written a fine book on the potential, execution and practicality of Grid or Utility Computing. It is large ( 400 pages ) and well written book, technically accurate and blends well with other industry strategies such as on demand and Autonomic Computing. The chapters on open standards are particularly strong, well thought out and presented. The book is designed well and book production, diagrams, layout is nothing short of highest quality - in short, excellent.

The prospect of true utility computing is within reach and technically feasible. The authors bring together best deployment practices, practical guidance on integrating existing resources, and applicable case studies. This book goes a long way to assisting that projection and should become a classic standard in the field.

Full kudos~! - and a doff of the hat to both authors.