The Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure (The Elsevier Series in Grid Computing) (Hardcover)

by Ian Foster (Editor), Carl Kesselman (Editor) "This second edition of The Grid marks a major turning point in the evolution of the Grid concept..." (more)
Key Phrases: configurable object program, monitoring event data, simple composite elements, Globus Toolkit, Open Grid Services Architecture, Butterfly Grid (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Beyond the Net, say Foster, Kesselman, and a host of impressive contributors, lies the Grid. While the Net allows users everywhere to share information, the Grid will allow users to share raw computing power. The goal is to put full supercomputing capabilities into the hands of anyone who needs it while providing for more efficient use of the supercomputers of tomorrow. The potential benefits to science, government, and business may well be beyond imagination.

Foster and Kesselman have gathered together essays, proposals, and ruminations of more than 30 distinguished stars of the high-speed computing and networking world in order to do four things: make the case for developing computational grids, provide ideas on how such grids may be designed, demonstrate how the grids might be used, and point out the research still needed to make it happen. While the book was written to serve as a possible textbook in advanced networking, it makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the future of network computing.

The text covers Grid applications, the programming tools required, the services that will be provided, and an examination of Grid infrastructure. Despite being the work of so many authors, the chapters are logically arranged so that the knowledge needed to understand one chapter is provided by those that precede it. --Elizabeth Lewis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
I am struck by the increased emphasis on applications---50% more pages and 4 times the number of chapters---than in the first edition. There is also more material on developing standards, policy, and management. These are true signs of a maturing technology. I hold firm that the Grid will have significant impact on more aspects and segments of IT than the designers originally conceived. The rich experiences in this book will convince the reader as well

—Shane Robison, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy & Technology Officer, Hewlett-Packard

The “doing of science” s at an inflection point: Computation, collaboration, visualization and smart storage lie at the heart of what science in the 21st century requires. This extremely readable collection provides a detailed roadmap for creating a global platform that enables this transformation. Most fascinating, to me, is how the Grid creates a technical artifact around which the social practices of science will evolve. Cultures form around artifacts,which is why this book is so important.

—John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist of Xerox and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), co-author of The Social Life of Information, HBSP 2000

The Grid, 2nd Edition, extends a vision and agenda for another decade. The Grid and web services technologies are enabling pioneering, distributed applications that begin to fulfil the vision. Eventually we’ll look back on the resulting standardization for interoperation as the real revolution. The standards and discipline will enable a new form of software construction, delivery, and even restructure the software industry.

—Gordon Bell, Senior Researcher, Microsoft

Foster and Kesselman have done a great job in documenting the promises and challenges of GRIDs as they evolve from their distributed computing roots to support the virtualization of applications.

—Robert Aiken, Director of Engineering Academic Research and Technology Initiatives (ARTI), Cisco Systems Inc.

Do you want to understand why the computer, as we know it today, will become obsolete? If yes, put your money down, and buy this book. I congratulate the authors.

—Philip Emeagwali, Scientist and “A Father of the Internet”

Since the first edition of this book, the Grid has evolved from vision to reality: it has become a computing and data management infrastructure that is widely used in science and engineering, has a strong industrial support and has a large community of developers and users. The two editors of this book, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, played a leading role in this transformation. This new edition of The Grid reflects this change. Like the original edition, it is likely to become the one essential reference about the Grid, as well as an excellent introduction to the technologies that are used in the Grid infrastructure.

—Marc Snir, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

For proponents of Grid computing and for the IT community that seeks to apply these ideas, this book will serve as a first class tour of the concept space and the details of its implementation. Guaranteed to be thought provoking and an excellent source of information.

—Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer -- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 748 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 2 edition (December 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558609334
• ISBN-13: 978-1558609334
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #445,957 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Startling look into the future, March 20, 2002

By	Michael J Gambale (North Wales, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure (Hardcover)

I don't understand some of the critical reviews of this book. The fact is that Grids do exist today and are being used by Research oriented companies. About two dozen companies are already serving clients in the realm of grid computing. Platform Computing, United Devices, and Avaki are just three companies who are helping to create the future of the grid computing. The web succeded because it connected everybody. Until larger grids are contructed for business enterprises I agree that grid computing will not grow. The book does a great job of showing what the future may be like in terms of grid computing. Someday your computing resources will come from your local Grid Computing Company just as you get electricity from your Power Company. How that comes to be is still the ultimate question.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor tech, poor future insights, April 7, 2005

By	BlackICE (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews

Before buying this book, I also bought the first volume. Personally I would say the first one being more interesting and technically adequate to whom wants a professional insight on what grid computing is. The second book seemed to me a simple marketing strategy: no new topics, no technical insights. Just an annoying list of accomplished grid deployments ranging from scientific installments to commercial ones.
I'm actually disappointed. I was hoping Foster et. al. could give me some new and interesting insights on what are the real problems of advanced grid computing concepts and techniques instead, I received a book great only for making the references to my thesis (I was doing my master thesis on grid mapping algorithms).
Moreover, most of the deployed scenarios explained in the book can be easily find on the net by searching for scientific documents on specific grid topics. Seems more of a collage of articles rather than a deep analysis of actual grid challenges, techniques and pros&cons.
I would suggest such a book only to newby wanting to get an overview of what grid computing is and what has been done to date.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hear the authors out, July 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure (Hardcover)

Boy, when was VA declared an imagination-free zone? Don't the critical reviewers of this book have any belief in the possibilities afforded by grid computing? To complain that the book is light on technical detail is somewhat churlish, because the purpose of the book was to examine the possibilities, not show you how to code one up in an afternoon at the comfort of your desk.

Can there be any doubt that computing grids will start to become popular in some form or another? I don't think there is any doubt at all. Perhaps when some of the research and early work is complete and the standards agreed, some enterprising author can write a book on grid computing with more technical meat on the bone, but until that work is done, what would be the point? I suspect there just isn't all that much technical detail to point at yet.

To my way of thinking, all the possible uses and configurations of computing grids are still to be discovered. If you are one of the explorers intent on doing something new and different with the technology, then this book is for you. If you are only content to follow the crowd, once all the technical details have been worked out and served up on a plate to you by somebody else, then by all means skip this book and wait for one with more technical gravitas.