Grid Computing Update
The Market Gathers Momentum
In the third quarter of 2004, Quocirca reported on the state of Grid Computing adoption in Europe through a set of key market indicators that collectively made up the "Grid Index". In March 2005, these same indicators provide clear insights into the way Grid related activity is developing, but this time on a global basis.
- IT professionals are now much better informed on the nature and benefits of virtualization and grid related technologies
Trending data for Europe, where two cycles of the Grid Index programme have now been executed, indicate a doubling in the level of knowledge of virtualization and grid related technologies over the past 9 months. The key indicator in this area, the "Knowledge Index", increased from 2.74 in June 2004 to 5.81 in March 2005 (on a scale of 0 to 10). There was a similar dramatic increase in the "Benefit Index", an indicator of how much IT professionals acknowledge the potential of the technologies tracked. This index rose from 2.25 to 4.58 over the same period.
- An increase in marketing, sales and education by IT vendors has driven the awareness
The main source of Grid Computing knowledge cited by survey respondents was the IT vendor community, with Web communities and special interest groups also contributing significantly. The media have yet to ramp up their activity in this area, though we are starting to see an increase in coverage by both the business and IT press.
- Virtualisation technologies are gaining significant mainstream traction, which in turn will drive Grid Computing adoption
The "Commitment Index", which measures the degree to which organizations are incorporating emerging solutions into their plans and activities, rose by between 50% and 80% for server virtualization and storage virtualization technologies between June 2004 and March 2005. This suggests that these technologies are now moving freely into mainstream adoption. Taking virtualization to the next step by introducing automation in the form of Grid Computing is still only taking place amongst a relatively small number of early adopters, however, with modest growth (<15%) in tangible activity off a smaller base. Grid Computing therefore still has to move from idea to action for most organisations, but such a move is very likely as the momentum behind virtualization will drive this natural evolution.
- Adoption in North America is ahead of Europe, and the Asia Pacific region lags behind
The combined Commitment Indices for virtualisation and Grid technologies in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific were 3.02, 2.70 and 1.74 respectively. The highest local adoption rates worldwide were recorded in the Nordic region of Europe, which had a Commitment Index of 3.60. The lowest adoption rates were in China, Korea and India. This distribution of early activity is normal for emerging technologies. However, there is clear evidence that a higher level of infrastructure standardisation in Asian countries increases the appeal of Grid Computing and the ease with which it can be implemented. Asia Pacific is therefore well positioned to close the gap.
- Grid adoption goes hand in hand with modern software and hardware architectures
There is a clear correlation between the knowledge and adoption of grid related technologies and familiarity with and use of service oriented architectures (SOA). This makes sense as the componentised application approach associated with SOA enables more flexibility and control in a grid environment, enhancing the benefits significantly. Those more active with grid related technologies were also significantly more likely to be using blade computing architectures.
- Whilst challenges remain, the positive steps towards grid are very encouraging
Despite the dramatic increases in awareness, IT professionals still highlight limited familiarity and skills availability as two of the main constraining factors on grid computing adoption, along with the need for solutions to mature further and for standards to firm up. Given that the industry has moved up a gear in addressing these issues and early experience with virtualisation will drive interest in automation, the outlook for the mainstream grid computing market is very healthy.
