Grids

I recently read an article in The Globe and Mail about FightAIDS@Home, a grid computing project that aims to identify compounds that prevent HIV from binding to receptors on human cells through 3D modelling and binding simulations. The project is run through the World Community Grid, which appears to be an IBM charitable project.

I was looking around on the site trying to find out exactly what Grid toolkit/framework (ie. Globus), if any, they use for this. I know the protein folding project has been around for a long time, before ‘grid standards’ ever really became a key issue. These are fairly straightforward, ‘embarrassingly parallel’ computations, so maybe there’s no framework involved at all.

Anyway, I’ve been hearing a lot about various grid initiatives lately. IBM is into grid in a big way, Telus started offering pay-per-use shared computing resources last year through Sun’s N1 framework, and many other big companies can be expected to begin to diversify themselves and further realign themselves as a services organizations via utility computing offerings.

Personally, I find grid computing to be a fascinating area. Some day I’d like to become more involved.