The next-generation Globus Toolkit that will combine Grid technology with Web services will be available as an alpha release in January, Globus project co-leaders Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman said at the Supercomputing 2002 conference in Baltimore this week.
Globus Toolkit 3 (GT3) will implement the Open Grid Services Architecture vision for the convergence of Grid computing and Web services, an effort that began with the open-source Globus Project and IBM and grew into a broader effort of the standards-setting Global Grid Forum. GT3 will be available as a public beta release next June, Foster and Kesselman said.
GT3 will build on the core Globus Toolkit, the de facto Grid computing standard, and will add features such as resource management, registry, data services, and the ability to submit and keep track of jobs, said Kesselman of USC's Information Sciences Institute.
Kesselman said he was "thrilled" with the rapid strides made by Grid technology in the last year, but worried that Grid might be progressing "a little too fast. We need to make sure we can deliver the capability" that Grid promises, he said.
Kesselman and Foster, of Argonne National Laboratory, cited numerous examples of how far Grid technology has come. They cited commercial efforts by IBM, Oracle, HP, SGI, Sun, Platform Computing, Entropia and United Devices, and Foster noted that "we're seeing Grid signs on booths this year" that weren't at SC2001 a year ago.
"We're seeing serious infrastructure based on Globus and Grid technology," Foster said.
On the scientific front, Kesselman said Globus powers research projects from "the universe to the subterranean. ... At some level, Globus is involved in everything from the subatomic level to understanding the structure of the universe."
Foster said utility and on-demand computing are still 6-12 months from beginning to realize their potential, calling that vision for Grid computing "ambitious, revolutionary ... much harder to get right."
Kesselman said that "real applications, pilots, and hard-core deployments" of Grid technology will begin to appear in the next 18 months, but that the "full revolution" promised by Grid is 5-10 years away.
"It is as fundamental a change as the Web and the Net," Kesselman said. "It is a complete revolution in the way we interact with our environment."
Foster called security a "big area of research for us," and said that there is an OGSA security working group within the Grid Forum that is coordinating with the W3C on security issues.
Foster and Kesselman also put in a plug for the GlobusWorld conference in San Diego in January. The conference will focus on the growing number of commercial Globus users, Foster said, and "all the main industrial and scientific" players will be there.
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