AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- The Matrix may be the future of virtual reality, but researchers say the Grid is the future of collaborative problem-solving.
More than 400 scientists gathered at the Global Grid Forum this week to discuss what may be the Internet's next evolutionary step.
Though distributed computing evokes associations with populist initiatives like SETI@home, where individuals donate their spare computing power to worthy projects, the Grid will link PCs to each other and the scientific community like never before.
The Grid will not only enable sharing of documents and MP3 files, but also connect PCs with sensors, telescopes and tidal-wave simulators.
IBM's Brian Carpenter suggested "computing will become a utility just like any other utility."
Carpenter said, "The Grid will open up ... storage and transaction power in the same way that the Web opened up content." And just as the Internet connects various public and private networks, Cisco Systems' Bob Aiken said, "you're going to have multiple grids, multiple sets of middleware that people are going to choose from to satisfy their applications."
As conference moderator Walter Hoogland suggested, "The World Wide Web gave us a taste, but the Grid gives a vision of an ICT (Information and Communication Technology)-enabled world."
Though the task of standardizing everything from system templates to the definitions of various resources is a mammoth one, the GGF can look to the early days of the Web for guidance. The Grid that organizers are building is a new kind of Internet, only this time with the creators having a better knowledge of where the bottlenecks and teething problems will be.
The general consensus at the event was that although technical issues abound, the thorniest issues will involve social and political dimensions, for example how to facilitate sharing between strangers where there is no history of trust.
Amsterdam seemed a logical choice for the first Global Grid Forum because not only is it the world's most densely cabled city, it was also home to the Internet Engineering Task Force's first international gathering in 1993. The IETF has served as a model for many of the GGF's activities: protocols, policy issues, and exchanging experiences.
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