Only one in five IT managers surveyed by analyst firm
IDC understood grid computing with most respondents failing to see
its value as a technology alternative that has any relevance in the
real world.
Respondents even dubbed it a technology bandied about by
marketing professionals and the media. Unless suppliers can bridge
the education gap, uptake is likely to remain small.
IDC PC hardware market analyst Michael Sager admits early
adoption has been restricted to high-performance computing and
there is still the big task of educating the enterprise.
"The true benefits and value proposition of the model must be
pushed even further as end users from the survey are still
generally confused as to the concept of grid computing," Sager
said.
"It takes a huge cultural shift for an organisation to move
towards grid computing, and there still needs to be a lot more
education from suppliers."
"But there are a few success stories; the IBM and Qantas
[project] is the main one that comes to mind, and HP has had a few
big deals," Sager said.
Europe is one part of the world where grid computing is finding
mainstream success with grid server revenues likely to reach $1.8bn
(£972m).
The main driver is an interest in more efficient and lower-cost
computing and, based on a study of buying behaviour and trends
undertaken nationally early this year.
IDC found that only 6.8% of respondents indicated they were
moving to or planning to move towards grid computing model.
However, more than double this number, 15.2%, claimed they did
not know if their organisation was moving towards this model.
Gartner research director Phillip Sargeant said grid computing
is still at the experimental stage, adding that suppliers are
sponsoring academic projects in this area.
Supervising engineer of the Australian car manufacturer Holden
Innovation, Winson Ng said the reason enterprises are not using
grid computing on a day-to-day basis is because the infrastructure
is not yet available.
Ng said the main inhibitors to enterprise grid computing include
availability of expertise to manage the infrastructure including a
wide network, availability of bandwidth, and operational issues
like time differences between computing resources.
But he said there are real business benefits in grid computing
for computer aided engineering (CAE).
"For example, CAE could run calculations overnight but it would
need a smart system to look at the office hours of locations," he
said. "Also, the flexibility to work across operating systems and
legacy software is needed."
Ng said he sees great value in grid computing, especially in a
large company with many idle CPUs.
"It's not far away for manufacturers like us that need to use as
many CPUs as are available," he said. "If General Motors [US] is
interested in the technology now it could be three to five years
before it becomes an IT-approved process. It's definitely the way
forward and the sooner the better."
Siobhan McBride and Rodney Gedda write for Computerworld
Today