Trafford Publishing: Great Global Grid: Emerging Technology Strategies

Here is the full reference card for this book...

If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Great Global Grid: Emerging Technology Strategies

by Robert Marcus

338 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0697; ISBN 1-55369-884-3; US$39.95, C$62.32, EUR40.60, £28.10

The Great Global Grid is the next generation of the Internet where universal connectivity to large computing resources will be available for consumers and enterprises. This is the first book to pragmatically analyze the full range of software technologies that are converging to create future Internet architectures including utility grids, Web Services, wireless devices, peer-to-peer collaboration, virtual clusters, business process automation, and enterprise portals.

Read more!

about the book about the author sample excerpts or Table of Contents catalogue info

About the Book

Emerging Technology Strategies and the Great Global Grid
The next generation of the Internet will produce dramatic economic and social changes exceeding even the World Wide Web. Several emerging technologies are converging to create a Great Global Grid infrastructure where universal connectivity to large computing resources will be available for consumers and enterprises. The goal of this book is to provide a systematic survey of the full spectrum of Great Global Grid technologies from an enterprise viewpoint.
The Great Global Grid - The range of technologies comprising the Great Global Grid is very wide. One of the main contributions of the book is to categorize these technologies in detail and to explain the dependencies among them. The technologies include:

Application Servers and Portals
Enterprise Application Integration and B2B Middleware
Web Services and XML Messaging
Peer-to-Peer Collaboration
Pervasive Computing: Middleware and Software Platforms
Distributed Resource Managers, Clusters and Grids
Global Grid Middleware
Conclusions for the Future

Emerging Technology Strategies - The book does not hype these technologies or their benefits. Section 1 of the book describes examples of past emerging technologies that failed to realize their initial vision. Based on the lessons learned from these experiences, a pragmatic technology evaluation template is created that includes:

Overview of the technology
Relationships to other technologies
Important technical and business trends
Specific applications
Industry and official standards
Vendor overview by application area
Leading implementation approaches
Advice on deployment
Future technical and business directions
Recommendations

Audience - The information collected in this book is not available from any other single source. The broad range of technologies, standards and vendors covered is necessary to understand the future enterprise applications of the Internet. The following groups should find the contents of this book especially valuable.

Decision makers for the evaluation strategy and discussions of current products, standards and open issues
Developers and architects for the overview of many advanced software technologies and their relationships
Consultants for the industry analysis of vendors and business applications
Futurists for the trends and research that are the basis of the next generation Internet
Students for the industrial applications and open source projects

About the Author

Dr. Robert Marcus has worked in many different areas of information technology and software development. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Emerging Technology Strategies in Boulder, Colorado. His previous experience includes Director of Technology Transformation and Deployment at General Motors, CTO of Rogue Wave Software, VP of Technical Strategy at the MCC Research Consortium, Director of Object Technology at American Management Systems, Coordinator of Object Technology at Boeing, and Advanced Technology Software Engineer at HP. He was the lead organizer of the 2001 Software Services Grid Workshop that initiated discussions among the leaders of the Grid, object and Web standards communities.

Excerpts

Preface

The next generation of the Internet will produce dramatic changes exceeding even
those caused by the World Wide Web. Several emerging technologies are combining to
create a "Great Global Grid" infrastructure that will enable universal connectivity to large
computing resources. This connectivity can be made available as a utility to consumers
and enterprises.

Society and industry's ability to productively absorb these future changes will be a
serious challenge. The best way to manage technology transformations is to develop
well-defined processes for understanding and assessing new technologies and their
impact. The goal of this book is to provide a systematic survey of the Great Global Grid
technologies from an enterprise point of view

Section 1. Emerging Technology Strategies. The book does not exaggerate the
capabilities of the technologies or their benefits. Section 1 describes some examples of
past emerging technologies that failed to realize their initial vision. Based on the lessons
learned from these experiences, a technology evaluation template is created and used
to describe the emerging technologies of the Great Global Grid. This template includes:

· Description of the technology
· Relationships to other technologies
· Important technical and business trends
· Specific applications
· Industry and official standards
· Vendor overviews by application area
· Leading implementation approaches
· Advice on deployment
· Future technical and business directions
· Summary and recommendations

Section 2. Great Global Grid - The range of technologies comprising the Great Global
Grid is large and complex. One of the main contributions of this book is to categorize
these technologies in detail and the dependencies among them. The evaluation
template from Section 1 is used to refine the analysis and present specific examples.
The chapters in Section 2 are:

· Application Servers and Portals
· Enterprise Application Integration and B2B Middleware
· Web Services and XML Messaging
· Peer-to-Peer Collaboration
· Pervasive Computing: Middleware and Software Platforms
· Distributed Resource Managers, Clusters and Grids
· Global Grid Middleware
· Conclusions for the Future

Extensions - The value of the book is enhanced by several sections providing crossreferences
including:

· Reference links for individual book sections
· Large glossary with pointers to book sections and Web information
· Index for vendors and standards groups covered in the book
· Open sources sites for specific technologies
· Web site at http://www.great-global-grid.com with an updated set of reference links

Audience - The range of information collected in this book is not available from any
other source. The broad spectrum of technologies, standards and vendors covered is
necessary to understand the future enterprise applications of the Internet. The following
groups should find the contents of this book especially valuable.

· Decision makers for the evaluation of current products, standards and open issues
· Developers and architects for the overview of advanced software technologies
· Consultants for the industry analysis of vendors and business applications
· Futurists for the trends and research that are the basis of the next generation Internet
· Students for the industrial perspective and leading edge implementations

Final thought - The world is changing rapidly. The specific details of products,
standards, interfaces and implementations will continue to evolve. Enterprise planning
will always need to be based on updated and specialized analysis. However the Great
Global Grid descriptive framework in this book should provide a good foundation for
future decision making.
Acknowledgments - The strong support and understanding of my wife, Lois Hayes, was
essential in making this book a reality. Brian Hochgurtel provided valuable feedback that
improved the quality of the presentation. My father, William Marcus, supplied inspiration by
example, with his best-selling text, "Elements of Radio".

Chapter 1. Introduction

The "Great Global Grid" describes the next generation of the Internet. The explosive
growth in distributed technology has created the foundation for this new infrastructure.
In contrast to the current Web, which is loosely coupled, the Grid will enable the linking
and sharing of distributed resources across heterogeneous platforms and multiple
organizations. This new technology will revolutionize the enterprise business
environment even more than the World Wide Web. Computational, database, and
storage resources can be made available as utilities following the model of the electrical
and telecommunication grids. Corporations and their customers will potentially have
access to computers and databases distributed around the world. This chapter
introduces the business and technical vision for the future Grid.

The creation of the Great Global Grid is dependent on multiple emerging technologies
that will be deployed within enterprises and on the Internet. Some of the technologies
that will be part of the future Grid include Web Services, business process automation,
pervasive computing, distributed resource grids, peer-to-peer systems, and advanced
system integration middleware. There are important dependencies and relationships
among the technology components that must be documented for future planning.

To realize the business benefits, while avoiding costly mistakes in deploying the Grid,
enterprises must develop a coherent process for evaluating emerging technology. The
purpose of this book is to help decision-makers successfully implement these new
technologies. The first section provides a standard template for assessing the maturity
and usefulness of software technologies. The second section uses the template to
evaluate the technologies converging into the Great Global Grid.

The assessment includes application areas, business benefits, successful deployments,
standards, vendors, technical approaches, critical issues, future directions and
recommendations for each technology. The technologies feeding into the Great Global
Grid are depicted in Figure 1-1.

Many industry leaders have articulated the vision of the Great Global Grid and this
convergence of technologies. This book is an overall description of the current status,
future directions, dependencies, and business applications for this convergence. The
business perspective can be found in this quote from Michael Malone, an editor at
Forbes.

"It will be across the board, from chips to wireless to information
technology to a Great Global Grid, providing a wealth of opportunities
for entrepreneurs, consumers, and investors. It will come in the form
of universal broadband access, unlimited network server availability,
global virtual malls, real-time enterprise computing"

Web Services and peer-to-peer technologies will be key components of the Great
Global Grid. Microsoft has targeted it .NET initiatives in these areas. The quote below
from Gordon Bell, Senior Researcher at Microsoft and ex-VP of R&D at Digital, shows
Microsoft's Grid direction.

"Microsoft's next generation architecture .NET is grid. Let's face it, it's
a commercial version of grid, so to me, the grid is quite interesting
because it's the ultimate in distributed computing."

Wireless technology extends the scope of the Grid to a wide range of new environments
and applications. The use of mobile devices and embedded systems create major new
challenges and opportunities for all of the Grid technologies. Hewlett-Packard describes
this future in its Cooltown vision.

"Rampant diversity of mobile and embedded information products,
wireless and wired communication networks, and rich media content
will be the norm, fueling an explosion of novel and sophisticated
services to feed user and business demand for everything Net."

The computing resources that power the Grid will expand as clusters of servers are
connected locally, within enterprises and finally across the Internet. This effort is
underway today including standards initiatives from the Global Grid Forum supported by
all major software vendors. Wolfgang Gentzsch, Engineering Director for Grid Software
at Sun, describes this movement in the quote below.

"Like we have one World Wide Web, today, we may have just one
Great Global Grid in the future, with the ability to host thousands or
millions of sub-grids, cluster and campus grids which are able to
seamlessly plug into the global layer, enabled by standards as they
are currently developed in the Global Grid Forum."

Following the path of the Internet and Web, Grid computing has been successfully
prototyped by scientific researchers and is beginning to spread to more general
applications. In the current testbeds, Global Grid middleware is used to coordinate the
sharing of distributed resources. Figure 1-2 illustrates Global Grid Coordinator software
orchestrating the interaction of multiple autonomous resource providers to deliver
services to clients.

The term Great Global Grid includes much more than the scientific Grid system
software. IBM has launched a major Grid computing initiative as described by Irving
Wladawsky-Berger, IBM Server Group Vice President of Technology and Strategy.

"Each stage of the Internet's evolution has been cumulative. Where
the Internet today is a vast repository of content that enabled ebusiness,
the next major stage will leverage Grid computing -- turning
the Internet itself into a computing platform."

Combining all of these technologies will realize the goal of Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of
the World Wide Web.

"The vision I have for the Web is about anything being potentially
connected to anything."

The purpose of this book is to amplify these visions while maintaining a real-world
perspective on the near-term business impact of these emerging technologies. The
pragmatic combination of vision and reality is essential for understanding the future of
the Great Global Grid.

References:
Michael Malone's quote from Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/asap/2001/0910/044_print.html
Gordon Bell's quote
http://it.mycareer.com.au/news/2001/10/09/FFXMLM06JSC.html
HP CoolTown quote
http://www.cooltown.com/dev/beliefs.asp
Wolfgang Gentzsch's quote
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=1545
Irving Wladawsky-Berger's quote
http://linuxpr.com/releases/4346.html
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/filters/specialreport/0,14622,6022871,00.html#
Tim Berners-Lee's quote from his book "Weaving the Web" Page 1
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/Overview.html

Chapter 5. Overview of Great Global GridT echnologies
For enterprises deploying Great Global Grid technologies internally or linking to external
systems, it is critical that the multiple technologies work together. Figure 5-1 provides a
high level view of some of the interfaces between the technologies.

Figure 5-1. Great Global Gridt echnologies and some of their interfaces

Figure 5-1 also shows the chapter in the book where the technology will be discussed in
detail. A brief overview of the specific technologies is given below.

Application Servers andP ortals (Chapter 6)

Application servers supply the infrastructure services that are the foundation for ebusiness
and enterprise computing architectures. Portal technologies provide valueadded
services such as enterprise information retrieval, e-commerce, and business
collaboration. The portal vendors initially supplied their own application servers but
portal services are now more often bundled with the market-leading application servers.

The role of application servers in the Great Global Grid will be to provide the gateways
to enterprise resources for many different clients. Application servers are evolving to
support XML interfaces, wireless clients, enterprise application integration, reliable
messaging and embedded systems. Portals will use these application server extensions
to provide new customized services by assembling XML-based components called
portlets. Integrated content management will be necessary for large-scale portals.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 6 include application servers (e.g. J2EE,
Microsoft COM+), portals (e.g. enterprise information, commerce servers, and business
partner), deployment frameworks (e.g. Struts) and content management packages.

Enterprise Application Integration and B2B Middleware (Chapter 7)

Within corporations, sophisticated enterprise application integration (EAI) products are
used to link multiple applications by means of message routing, data transformations
and adapters. Process modeling and execution tools can be used to control message
flows. EAI products have been interfaced to business to business (B2B) messaging
middleware to support unified cross enterprise business processes. Application server
and EAI middleware products are being combined to create new integrated frameworks.

The primary role of EAI products in the Great Global Grid will be to tie together
enterprise resources into composite services. B2B messaging will be used for the
sharing of information and business transactions. The new requirements for EAI and
B2B middleware include interfaces to Web Services, support for extended workflows,
and workload management capabilities. More sophisticated process automation tools
using rule-based and agent technologies will be essential for complex interactions.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 7i nclude EAI hubs (e.g. Microsoft BizTalk
Server, IBM WebSphere MQ), EAI buses (e.g. TIBCO), Java Message Service (JMS)
frameworks, business-to-business middleware, process automation tools, workflow, and
software agents.

Web Services andX ML Messaging (Chapter 8)

Corporations will use XML-based technologies in many future business applications.
Standard XML formats enable structured data to be transformed and transmitted
between heterogeneous applications. Web Services technology makes enterprise
resources accessible through XML-based interfaces. Commercial products supply
middleware and infrastructure support for Web Services and XML messaging
interactions. Existing system integration middleware and Web Services are being
merged into frameworks for distributed computing.

Web Services and XML messaging can potentially be the essential backbone for the
Great Global Grid. However the technology must mature before it will be usable in this
role. The most important requirement is standardized support for security, transactions,
reliability, process modeling, and system management. This support is necessary for
both enterprise Web Services and for global XML-based business-to-business
messaging. Additional capabilities are also needed in vertical industry XML formats,
peer-to-peer connectivity, wireless device support, and composite Web Services
standards.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 8 include Java Web Services, Microsoft .NET,
Web Services and XML standards, composite Web Services (e.g. brokering,
management, aggregation, orchestration), and Web Services networks (e.g.
transactional messaging, event-driven communication).

Peer-to-Peer Collaboration (Chapter 9)

Peer-to-peer collaboration technology has been very successful in the consumer
domain. Enterprise use of this technology is spreading. One of the key issues for crossenterprise
applications is secure peer-to-peer communication across firewalls. The goal
of the new peer-to-peer collaboration products is to provide capabilities such as instant
messaging, file sharing and real-time collaboration at low cost. Some of the peer-topeer
architectures utilize servers for coordination and system management while others
are totally decentralized.

Peer-to-peer collaborative computing will provide more flexible applications for the
Great Global Grid. The increased client-side processing will also relieve the load on
back-end servers. Some of the future requirements for peer-to-peer technologies
include interoperability standards, interfaces to Web Services, support for devices,
security, and management tools. Several open source efforts such as JXTA are
underway to develop peer-to-peer protocol standards, reference models and
applications.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 9 include instant messaging using servers (e.g.
Jabber), file sharing using pure peer-to-peer communication (e.g. JXTA), collaboration
using servers for coordination (e.g. Groove), and cross-enterprise applications.

Pervasive Computing: Middleware and Software Platforms (Chapter 10)

The goal of pervasive computing is to provide ubiquitous access to distributed
computational resources (e.g. embedded systems) from diverse clients (e.g. wireless
devices). Robust middleware and compact device software platforms are necessary to
attain this goal. Standardization of device platforms is increasing. The Open Mobile
Alliance is developing many standards for commercial mobile computing. The current
business applications are simple but will grow more complex as device computing
power and network bandwidth increase.

Linking of wireless devices to Web Services and other system integration middleware is
one of the major requirements for the future. Embedded system servers and sensor
networks will be used in business and scientific environments. More powerful device
software platforms will be needed to support new applications. The development and
deployment of standardized end-to-end application frameworks will produce a major
expansion in the scope of the Great Global Grid.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 10 include Java end-to-end architecture (e.g.
application servers, Java 2 Micro Edition), Microsoft's end-to-end technology, mobile
computing standards, wireless application servers, multimodal interfaces, and
embedded XML servers.

DistributedR esource Managers, Clusters, and Grids (Chapter 11)

The original distributed workload and resource management products were used on
single vendor dedicated clusters. This technology is used to support high performance,
fault tolerance, and load balancing clusters in many companies. Several vendors have
created extended distributed resource managers for enterprise grids that include
multiple clusters and virtual clusters of non-dedicated servers.

High throughput architectures can also be created from networks of independent PCs
using distributed peer computing software. This technology can provide large
throughput for specialized applications on the public Internet. For corporations, peer
computing does not have the reliability of server clusters. However there are several
vendors and customers actively exploring possible business applications.

Virtual clusters and distributed peer computing can economically provide large
resources for the Great Global Grid. Creating Web Services interfaces to these
resources is a goal of current research. Utility data centers that use distributed resource
management to allocate resources will be an important step forward in reducing
infrastructure costs. The expansion of distributed resource management from
centralized cluster computing to widely distributed resources and edge servers will be
the basis for a fine-grained Grid infrastructure.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 11 include dedicated server clusters for high
performance and availability (Linux clusters), distributed resource managers for high
throughput (Sun, Platform), peer client clusters (Entropia), edge servers (IBM),
enterprise grids, blade servers, utility data centers, and computing fabrics.

Global Grid Middleware (Chapter 12)

The goal of Global Grid middleware is to combine the manageability, power and
reliability of cluster computing with the scalability of distributed Internet computing. The
most critical problem is the controlled sharing of resources across enterprises. Global
Grid middleware technology is being evaluated on several pilot projects across multiple
autonomous research sites. Some commercial products have incorporated interfaces to
Global Grid middleware.

One of the key open issues is the integration of Global Grid middleware with other
technologies such as Web Services, pervasive computing, virtual clusters, and existing
application server and EAI middleware. This integration will be essential to realize the
complete Global Grid vision. The Global Grid Forum is creating a wide range of
standards in these areas. The creation of Data and Collaboration Grids will require
additional extensions to current Global Grid middleware.

The technologies discussed in Chapter 12 include Global Grid middleware toolkits (e.g.
Globus), frameworks (e.g. Avaki), emerging standards (e.g. Global Grid Forum) and
deployed testbeds.

Summary: The technologies of the Great Global Grid are listed in the table 5-1. There
is also a brief description of their role, vision and some leading approaches. These
topics will be covered in more detail in the chapter devoted to each technology.

Technology Global Grid Role Vision Leading Approaches

Chapter 6.
Application
Servers and
Portals Universal
Gateways Provide access to
multiple resources
and services · Java 2 Enterprise
Edition (J2EE) servers
· Microsoft .NET and
COM+ with Windows

Chapter 7.
Enterprise
Application
Integration and
B2B Middleware Universal
Coordinators Orchestrate the
integration of multiple
systems into a
coherent business
process · Integration Hubs
(e.g., Microsoft Biztalk,
IBM WebSphere MQ
family)
· Message buses (e.g.
TIBCO)

Chapter 8.
Web Services
and XML
Messaging Universal
Communication Enable
heterogeneous
applications and
platforms to interact
using Internet
standards · Microsoft .NET
· Java Web Services
· XML messaging
frameworks

Chapter 9.
Peer- to-Peer
Collaboration Universal
Collaboration Distributed clients
interacting with each
other to share
information and
resources. · Server-based (e.g.
Jabber)
· Server-aided (e.g.
Groove)
· Pure peer-to-peer
(e.g. JXTA)

Chapter 10.
Pervasive
Computing:
Middleware and
Software
Platforms Universal Access Intelligent devices
(possibly wireless)
connected to Internet
resources and
services · Java end-to-end
architecture including
J2ME
· Microsoft end-to-end
architecture including
.NET Compact
Framework

Chapter 11.
Distributed
Resource
Managers,
Clusters, and
Grids Universal
Resources Many resources are
transparently
accessible through
Distributed Resource
Managers · Dedicated (e.g. Sun)
· Virtual (e.g. Platform)
· Edge servers (e.g.
IBM)

Chapter12.
Global Grid
Middleware Universal Virtual
Enterprise Secure sharing of
resources and
services across
multiple enterprises · Toolkit (e.g. Globus)
· Framework (e.g.
Legion)
· Commercial Grid
products using Globus
and Legion

Table 5-1. Great Global Grid technologies

Catalogue Information