Grid.org Open Source Community Shines

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Grid.org, the online community for open-source cluster and grid software, grew to 481 members and recorded more than 900 downloads of the free open-source Cluster Express beta software in its first month of availability.

Grid.org was launched Nov. 12, 2007 to provide a single aggregation point for information and interaction by the community of users, developers and administrators interested in a complete grid and cluster software stack. The site’s primary open-source project, Cluster Express, provides comprehensive cluster scheduling and management by integrating proven, best-of-breed, open-source components into a seamless package that is easy to install and use.

"Response to the initial Grid.org launch and to our call for participation in the Cluster Express beta program has been gratifying,” said Steve Tuecke, co-founder and chief technology officer at Univa UD, the Grid.org site sponsor. “Obviously we tapped into pent-up demand for a complete, integrated, open-source approach to cluster and grid computing.”

Univa UD announced the initial beta program for Cluster Express last month as a way to let users positively impact and shape development of the software, expected to be generally available in early 2008. Today, the company announced availability of the second beta version of Cluster Express on Grid.org.

“We expect the release of the new beta version to drive more participation in the community, as more and more people begin to install and use the technology. With the excellent input we’re getting from users, administrators and developers, there is no doubt we will be able to integrate exactly the components and features this market wants in subsequent releases,” Tuecke said.

Grid.org is expanding to meet community requirements based on input from site visitors. Recently, the site added a Wiki that allows shared authoring of open-source grid and cluster content by the Grid.org community. Grid.org also plans to support code-sharing, allowing Cluster Express developers to contribute to the software and users to easily share enhancements and applications. This capability, along with access to the Cluster Express source repository and versioning control system, will be available to members in the first quarter of 2008. Other planned enhancements include an interactive map of cluster implementations worldwide, to visually display and provide metrics on the landscape of cluster users at a global level.

About Grid.org

Grid.org is an online community for open source cluster and grid software users, administrators and developers. The mission of the site has evolved to one focused on providing a single location where open-source cluster and grid information can be aggregated so that people with a similar range of interests can easily exchange information, experiences, and ideas related to the complete open source cluster software stack. Established in 2001, Grid.org operated as a public interest Internet research grid for over 6 years and has now broadened the reach of the site to encourage use of open source technologies for grid computing at large.

Tags: Grid technology, Grid.org, gridtoday, Cluster Express

Geemodo: AMD Quad Core Phenom X4, pricing revealed

Whoa, multicore Grid is near!
Geemodo: AMD Quad Core Phenom X4, pricing revealed

Tags: grid, multi core cpu, Phenom X4

Grid Computing Term may fade?, Long Live Grid

I read an interesting article on computerworld today. I understand what it is trying to say but I don't by the theme of the article. But it is a good article, extensive, I think you should read it too, if you are interested in Grid computing. Let the author know what you think. Link is at the end.
August 14, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Depending on who describes it, grid computing has grown from its roots in high-performance computing into an enterprise technology that provides for shared resources. Or it's an overhyped, meaningless term that will soon disappear in the wake of advances in virtualization and utility computing.

Arguments abound on what constitutes grid computing. But at its core, grid is really an enabling technology that provides on-demand access to computing resources -- including systems, storage and networking -- and data, regardless of location. And because that sounds so similar to how most vendors currently define virtualization, some analysts say the term grid computing may not stick.

The concept behind the technology will likely live on, though, as customers tap into compute power available on underutilized servers, primarily through virtualization. William Fellows, an analyst at The 451 Group and author of a report entitled "Grid Computing: State of the Market" (download PDF), maintains that the term will likely be both more significant and less used in 2007. "Grid computing will be more relevant as grids are used to support far more than high-performance computing tasks, but less used as vendors seek to be associated with far more activity, far higher up the stack, than grid computing."

Grid computing: Term may fade, but features will live on

Tags: virtualization, grid, Grid Computing, utility computing

'Google of Image Searching' with a little help from Grid!

Imense Using Grid to Become 'Google of Image Searching'

Looking for images on the Internet can be a frustrating business. Whether you want the perfect sunset over the sea or the London skyline by night, you’re dependent on people to describe the images on their Web pages. Now, Imense Ltd, a high-tech Cambridge start-up, has announced new investment to help them become the "Google of image searching," using Imense's revolutionary technology. To test its software, they’ve made an unexpected partnership with a group of particle physicists using a massive computer grid.

Cambridge Ontology's technology makes content-based retrieval of images as easy and powerful as the search for text documents on the Internet. Our technology combines state-of-the-art computer vision with machine learning, natural language processing, and information retrieval methods to give an incomparable search experience.

The system automatically labels semantic visual content in images. Our cutting edge computer vision and visual classifiers allow the system to recognise a wide range of visual categories (e.g. grass, sky, sunset, beach etc.), as well as to spot and interpret faces.

Our technology allows a user to type a plain text query to search large image collections for images with matching visual content.

Tags: grid, Google, imense

The TeraGrid '07 conference,

The TeraGrid '07 conference theme is "Broadening Participation in TeraGrid." is open to scientists, engineers, faculty, post docs, graduate and undergraduate students, high school teachers, representatives from federal agencies, grid computing industry representatives, and staff from TeraGrid resource providers and partners, in short anyone who is interested in high performance computing.

Register by May 5 to receive a reduced conference rate. Online registration will remain open after May 5, and on-site registration will be offered for walk-ins. Follow the links below to register and discover Teragrid

TeraGrid is an open scientific discovery infrastructure funded by the National Science Foundation. TeraGrid combines leadership class resources at eight partner sites to create an integrated, persistent computational resource. TeraGrid provides more than 150 teraflops of computing power and nearly 2 petabytes of rotating storage, numerous scientific data collections, specialized data analysis tools, scientific gateways and user portals to simplify access to valuable resources, and visualization resources all interconnected via a high-speed gigabits/second dedicated national network.

Links;
The TeraGrid '07 conference registration;
The TeraGrid '07 conference

Tags: grid, Teragrid, high performance computing, HPC