Grid means business
- Posted:
- 16:43 02 Aug 2001
Grid technology uses spare capacity on computer networks to run complex applications. IBM plans to offer this spare capacity in its own datacentres, allowing businesses to buy computing processing power as and when they require it.
Warwick University, assisted by a £2m donation from IBM, is one of the sites researching how this kind of supercomputing power can be created from a network of less powerful computers.
The university has been given an S/390 mainframe and software to help create development tools for the grid. Using IBM's VM operating system technology, Warwick is able to run hundreds of virtual Linux machines within the single mainframe box housed at Warwick.
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In theory, the S/390 is capable of running up to 90,000 instances of Linux - "almost as much as anyone could need," commented James Turner, a Phd student studying Grid Computing at Warwick. The research is looking at the resource management issues raised when hundreds of machines are connected on this supercomputing grid.
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James Turner talks to CW360 about Grid Computing
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