Grid Computing: The past, now, and future

With the speed of changing technology in our time, staying up to date is very hard, and sometimes impossible for companies. Companies have to constantly update computers, servers, databases, and applications, among other things. Even though computers need to be updated to handle sophisticated software and complex problems, there is still vast amounts of power going to waste by computers sitting idle. A new technology has been formed out of this idea to take advantage of the amount of power being unused to allow companies to make use of it, saving vast amounts of much needed company funds. Grid Computing is a relatively new approach to sharing and accessing resources such as, computers, storage devices, and peripherals, which goes far beyond distributed computing. Accomplishing the goals of Grid Computing, however, present many challenges as well as opportunities. Some of these challenges include (a) security, (b) programming, (c) proper allocation of resources, and (d) inter process/system communication, to name a few. Currently, most successful deployment of Grid Computing exists in the areas of Physics and Scientific research; however, very little has been done in business and organizations. In this paper, we discuss issues and exploit possibilities for grid deployment in organizations, with a special emphasis on how such deployment may help to improve efficiency as well as determining an acceptable on return on the required level of investment in this new technology.