Grid Meter » Manufacturing Industry Prime for Data Grids

February 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Manufacturing Industry Prime for Data Grids

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Recently, members of the Grid community (myself included) have been harping on the fact that it's data management -- not just compute horsepower -- that's accelerating enterprise interest in Grid.

And manufacturing will be a particularly important vertical market to watch in enterprise Grid uptake. Here's an industry that needs to leverage both compute and data-intensive processes. The classic example is automotive clash analysis.

When designing something with complex interacting systems -- like an airplane or automobile -- the smallest change in one part can affect many others, including parts in other systems. An engine that can't fit between the front fenders come installation time is less than practical. In those complex designs, when a change is made, massive simulations are run to aggregate data from many different systems and ensure that the laws of physics are being met, and that two parts are not occupying the same space (hence avoiding the proverbial "clash").

In a recent announcement by Grid vendor Altair -- which has always had its sights trained on the manufacturing vertical -- they similarly echo the importance of data management in the Grid discussion:

"In his introductory editorial, James R. Scapa, Altair president and CEO, discusses corporate information and historical data, which he believes are increasingly valuable assets to a growing number of industries. Further, Scapa sees that organizing, optimizing and visualizing performance data is essential in providing the insightful information needed to make sound business decisions."

Altair is the company that brought to market the (very widely used) PBS / PBS Pro products -- synonymous with job scheduling on computational Grids. But it sounds like Altair is upping the ante on its data Grid story as well.

Posted by Greg Nawrocki on February 20, 2006 07:00 AM

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