Vendor Group Looks to Win Grid Computing Converts

Computerworld - The Enterprise Grid Alliance was formed six months ago by a group of IT vendors to accelerate the adoption of grid computing technology by corporate users. In addition, the EGA is now developing standards and specifications designed to make it easier for IT managers to deploy products in grid installations. EGA President Donald Deutsch, who is vice president of standards strategy and architecture at Oracle Corp., discussed the alliance's goals during an interview with Computerworld on Sept. 24.

What business problem is the EGA trying to solve? The EGA is focused on two classes of applications: commercial applications -- the guts of the organization, which includes highly transaction-oriented applications such as ERP, CRM, general ledger and business intelligence -- and a second class of applications, which, for a lack of a better term, we call technical applications. These are the things that might not be as transaction-oriented but are still fundamental to the business, such as portfolio analysis in the financial sector.

The ability of grid technology to handle technical applications is well known. But in terms of applications like CRM and ERP, what kind of role will grid play? Grid will play a fundamental role. These companies came together because their products are being applied today to address these sorts of mainline business applications. They recognized it as a business opportunity. They came together with the fundamental purpose of bootstrapping the market.

So, is this a marketing organization? That is an interesting question. Clearly, the objective of EGA is to speed up the time to market for grid technology and grow a market to the mutual benefit of the founding members. Toward that objective, EGA is focused on identifying real or perceived inhibitors to the adoption of grid technology in the enterprise and then addressing those inhibitors in whatever way is required.

EGA President Donald Deutsch

If this requires the development of specifications and creation of standards, then EGA will do that. If, in fact, one of the inhibitors is really a lack of knowledge in the marketplace or maybe a misunderstanding of the current state of technology, then EGA is positioned to address those through marketing. Is EGA a marketing or standards technology group? My answer is it's 60/40, and I'm not sure which is 60 and which is 40, because it depends on what people identify as the inhibitors.

There are a number of grid standards efforts, such as the Global Grid Forum, under way. Won't your effort create conflicts? EGA does not want to invent something thatwe can acquire from another consortium. If there's a solution available from another forum to a problem identified by EGA, we'll work with that forum to adopt their solution. In the absence of such a solution, if there's another forum that is able or better able to create a solution, we'll establish a relationship with that organization to assist them with that.

There are some big companies missing from your membership list. Can you be successful without IBM and Microsoft, for instance? We continue to talk with Microsoft and IBM. They or others can decide whether it's an appropriate forum. EGA is a level-playing organization, [a] one-company, one-vote organization.