This home page tells the Group of Parallel and Distributed Processing (GPPD) of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS - Brazil) research activities related the Grid technology.

       Grid computing has emerged as an important field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing by its focus on large-scale resource sharing, innovative applications, and, in some cases, high-performance orientation [1]. Its concepts were first explored in the 1995 I-WAY experiment, in which high-speed networks were used to connect, for a short time, high-end resources at 17 sites across North America. Out of this activity grew a number of Grid research projects that developed the core technologies for "production" Grids in various communities and scientific disciplines. For example, the US National Science Foundation's National Technology Grid and NASA's Information Power Grid are both creating Grid infrastructures to serve university and NASA researchers, respectively. Across Europe and the United States, the closely related European Data Grid, Particle Physics Data Grid and Grid Physics Network (GriPhyN) projects plan to analyse data from frontier physics experiments. And outside the specialized world of physics, the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Grid (NEESgrid) aims to connect US civil engineers with the experimental facilities, data archives and computer simulation systems used to engineer better buildings [2].

       The creation of large-scale infrastructure requires the definition and acceptance of standard protocols and services, just as the Internet Protocol (TCP-IP) is at the heart of the Internet. No formal standards process as yet exists for Grids (the Grid Forum is working to create one). Nonetheless, it's seen a remarkable degree of consensus on core technologies. Essentially all major Grid projects are being built on protocols and services provided by the Globus Toolkit, which was developed by Ian Foster's group at Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with Carl Kesselman's team at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, and other institutions. This open-architecture and open-source infrastructure provides many of the basic services needed to construct Grid applications such as security, resource discovery, resource management and data access [2].


References

[1] The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations. Foster, I., Kesselman, C., Tuecke, S. [anatomy.pdf] [anatomy.zip]

[2] Internet Computing and the Emerging Grid. Foster, Ian.