MIS Research Center Seminar Series
8:30 AM - 11:00 AM
1st Floor Auditorium, Carlson School of Management

Abstract

The Grid: Reality, Technology, and Applications

The Grid seems to be everywhere, with announcements of sales from major computer vendors, deployment in a wide range of application spaces, and many national and international scale infrastructure deployment. However, in spite of the popularity of the term, there is often confusion as to what the Grid is and what problems it solves. Is there any "there there" or is it all just marketing hype?

In this talk, I will address these questions, describing what the Grid is, what problems it solves, and what technology has been developed to build Grid infrastructure and create Grid applications. I will review the current status of Grid infrastructure and deployment and give examples of where Grid technology is being used not only to perform current tasks better, but to provide fundamentally new capabilities that are not possible otherwise.

Links to articles: at www.mcs.anl.gov/~foster, find links to:

• Scientific American article
• The Anatomy of the Grid
• The Physiology of the Grid
• The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure (2nd Edition)

Biography

Ian Foster is a Professor of Computer Science at The University of Chicago, and Associate Division Director, Senior Scientist, and Head of the Distributed Systems Lab, Mathematics & Computer Science, at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Foster, dubbed by October 2002 issue of Red Herring magazine as “ the Gridfather,” will speak to conference attendees and their guests, Wednesday afternoon, 5pm, January 7, 2004, in the Monarchy Ballroom, Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort.

The DSL group at University of Chicago's Computer Science Department conducts research in various areas of distributed systems with an emphasis on designing, implementing, and evaluating systems, protocols, and applications. Their mission is to prepare the next-generation of researchers and developers in these areas by investigating challenging, high-impact research projects. These projects span many areas, including Grid middleware; Grid applications; and data-intensive scientific computing.

The British Computer Society presented the 2002 Lovelace Medal to Foster and Carl Kesselman of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute for their work with the Globus Project and grid computing.

The Globus Project is a research and software development project led by Foster and Kesselman. The project delivers the research advances and open source software required to make grid computing successful in science, engineering, business, and other collaborative situations. Grid computing is the high-speed networking equivalent to the electric power grid, providing computer power on demand, much the way a power grid provides electricity.

The Lovelace Medal is presented to individuals who have made contributions of major significance in the advancement of information systems, or that adds significantly to the understanding of the development of information systems. Previous recipients of the medal include Doug Engelbart, developer of the computer mouse and computer windows; and Linus Torvalds, developer of the Linux operating system.  Dr Engelbart was the 1993 HICSS Distinguished Lecturer.

For more information about the work of Ian Foster, please visit http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~foster.