Grid Meter » A look ahead to the GridWorld event in Boston

September 21, 2005 | Comments: (0)

A look ahead to the GridWorld event in Boston

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The inaugural GridWorld event is right around the corner -- in Boston, in approx 2 weeks.

It's interesting to me -- and perhaps a sign of maturity for Grid -- that a professional events company (IDG World Expo) was hearing enough demand for Grid content and education from the enterprise to justify having a commercial-focused event. What's unique about GridWorld is that it blends the enterprise issues with the nuts, bolts and standards discussions of GGF.

I'm planning to attend - and I had a recent discussion with Steve Crumb, Executive Director of the GGF (who's a co-organizer of GridWorld) to get his insight into what he perceives to be some of the highlights of the event.

Steve mentioned that similar to the GGF Enterprise Grid event in Brussels, there are some strong enterprise deployment stories to be told. There will certainly be the familiar faces, however, there are also a set of new players eager to tell their Grid stories. Among them are financial services powerhouses Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and even Johnson and Johnson in the life sciences vertical.

Another program highlight Steve mentioned was the event's international perspectives. Presenters from companies in Japan, Europe and the US will speak to their Grid deployments and give the audience the ability to compare and contrast these deployments.

Although there will be a strong enterprise focus, Steve wanted to stress that the technical edge will be sharp. Grid technologists will find plenty of deep technical presos and tutorials, including updates from the open source community on version 4 of the Globus Toolkit, and features on new innovations in Security, Portals, and Grid management.

Finally, Steve was clearly excited about Ian Foster's panel, "The Different Faces of IT as a Service." This panel will be a timely discussion with key enterprise Grid players to help clear up some of the confusion surrounding Grid computing and some of the terms and definitions that often go hand in hand or are confused with Grid.

Posted by Greg Nawrocki on September 21, 2005 08:27 AM

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