Sidebar: Early Grid Adopters See Potential

Computerworld - PHILADELPHIA -- Grid computing is clearly expanding in U.S. companies, and analysts are bullish on its future. That's due in part to initiatives being taken by IT managers like Steve Yatko, global head of IT research and development at Credit Suisse First Boston LLC in New York.
Yatko said grid technology is key to developing a service-oriented architecture that focuses on delivering services to business users. With such an architecture, the technology becomes secondary, he said. The value of IT "will come from managing the whole and not the individual components," said Yatko, whose IT department manages 20,000 desktops and 9,000 servers.
While some IT departments are trying to reduce the number of vendors they deal with and consolidate on a single technology platform, Yatko said at last week's Grid Today 04 conference here that he believes in using best-of-breed systems built to open standards that allow interoperability. That's what's needed to "attack the complexity problem," he said, adding that vendor partnering will be "more critical then ever before."
But before grid computing can become widely deployed, IT managers first need to "find ways to automate those areas that are very labor-intensive," Yatko said. "That's going to be the key for being able to afford these new technologies."
Many firms are opting to begin with relatively small grid implementations. Steffen Neumann, a project manager at DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology North America Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif., developed a "proof of concept" grid using 12 notebook computers to run crash simulations that now run on a Unix cluster. The goal is create a pilot that will tap the computing power of some of DaimlerChrysler's 150,000 desktops to run simulations in Windows and Unix environments.
Robert Cohen, an economist at the Economic Strategy Institute in Washington, said grid use will have a significant impact on U.S. companies in the near future. Cohen's research on the topic, which was funded by IBM, Intel Corp., AT&T Corp. and other vendors, concluded that grid technology will boost productivity by 25% in industries such as pharmaceuticals and the automotive sector within six years.
Grid computing's "potential to change business processes and change efficiencies within companies is dramatic," Cohen said. "The companies that have begun to do it see it, and it's in their bottom line."