Japan plans super grid computer
Published: 11 Jul 2003 08:57 BST
The Japanese government, commercial bodies and universities have launched a scheme to develop one of the world's fastest supercomputers by linking smaller computers around the country in a grid.
Grid-computing technology promises a future where computers from different departments or organisations can be connected to work on critical tasks.
The Naregi (National Research Grid Initiative) plan hopes to create a supercomputer rated at 100 teraflops by 2007. The fastest computer today, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, runs at 36 teraflops.
The Naregi plan will seek to develop better software that will operate in the top and middle layer of the grid while harnessing the power of the linked computers to run nanotechnology simulations, according to a report in Nikkei Business News.
Top-layer software includes the tools used by end users to manipulate and visualise data, while the middleware layer consists of controls that distribute and schedule processing jobs around the grid and compiles the results coming back.
Naregi will also work with international grid computing bodies to develop standards for the nascent area of technology, and aims to be compliant with the Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA).
SINET, a fibre-optic backbone between Japanese institutions that runs at 10Gbps, will be used to connect the grid, according to the report.
Among the bodies taking part will be National Institute of Informatics (NII) and the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS). The government has seeded the project with $17m (£10.44m) in funding.
While the hype around grid computing has outpaced the reality, the technology allows companies to dedicate unused resources to the most critical problems at any given time.
Grid computing unites pools of servers, storage systems and networks into one large system.
Current contributors to the international OGSA project include IBM, Sun Microsystems, HP, Microsoft, Platform Computing, Hitachi, NEC, Fujitsu, Avaki and Entropia. Along with Naregi, their main tool is Globus, open-source software used to link groups of servers and storage systems into a single pool of computing power.
News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.
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