08 Mar 2007
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PC at night and the GRID
With the ever increasing demand for computer processing capability, a new way of working is being developed which can remotely make use of computers that are standing idle.
The U.S. Department of Defense project called "ARPANET" was first conceived during the Cold War with the goal of creating a distributed communications network that could survive a nuclear attack. ARPANET was the genesis of the Internet - an interesting example of military research spawning an unexpected civilian application. In the 1980's, workers at the CERN European laboratory for particle physics developed a set of new tools to help them collaborate across large distances. These developments gave rise to the World Wide Web, which in turn has enabled industries to adopt new ways of doing business and sharing information. We are now entering a new phase in the use of the Internet - the GRID - initially driven by the scientific community, but with industry not far behind.
New science needs new ways of working. Emerging fields in the biological sciences, such as the human genome project; and facilities like CERN's "Large Hadron Collider", are presenting the computer science world with challenges on data collection, storage, and processing that are so huge that even the ongoing exponential growth of computer technology will not be sufficient.
What's your PC doing tonight?
The computer science community is rising to this challenge by developing and delivering GRID. The GRID concept is a form of distributed computing that uses the Internet to co-ordinate and share resources (software, hardware, facilities, databases, networks, storage farms etc). GRID provides a vision of seamless access to such resources from anywhere at any time, through any device.
The name, GRID, is carefully chosen to indicate parallels with the electricity supply grid. The end-user needn't care about where the 'power' comes from, or how it gets to him, only that it is compatible, persistent and cheap. Governments in the US, UK, Japan and the European Union are now investing heavily in this area. Software and hardware suppliers (Microsoft, Intel, IBM, HP, Sun etc) are already defining their business strategies to meet this challenge, addressing the problems of security, ownership, access control, resource identification and usage tracking.
At BAE Systems, we want to ensure we are ready to exploit the benefits as soon as possible. We already have an extensive Intranet, as well as links to collaborators and suppliers - so what's new? A quick example: BAE Systems uses over 63,000 desktop computers. These resources are generally idle overnight and at weekends (i.e. around 70% of the time). If we were to add up the potential power of these machines we would have a facility equivalent to the 2nd largest supercomputer in the world!
Right now we can't access even a fraction of this power - due to issues such as access rights, connectivity, compatibility, ownership, security etc. GRID technology allows us to hunt down free resource, make use of it (subject to local policies and security considerations), and return it automatically to the original owner the minute it is needed. A demonstrator running at the ATC has already soaked up over 10million CPU seconds of latent resource allowing us to better utilise our existing assets. In the same way that the Web emerged from academic necessity into everyday reality, GRID has enormous potential to affect the way we live and work
