Sharing information the grid way
Imagine a communication system where schools, household users, small businesses and non-profit organisations can access each others' resources and share them when needed. Grid4All is a project funded by the EU that has worked on achieving this very dream. The project envisions a future where such access is democratised and cooperative. Home users, for example, may be able to access an image editing application while school projects can access volcanic eruption simulations. Cooperation over Grid4All could include joint homework between pupils or even international collaboration among various teams. In such a context, e-learning could also take on a much more robust role. By pooling large amounts of inexpensive resources, demand can be satisfied more easily. It can support geographically isolated groups, as well as peer-to-peer applications. The ultimate aim is to organise large numbers of small-scale resources into large-scale grids, based on openness and low cost for end-users. To achieve its goals, the project has developed prototype applications. It has achieved an architecture-based approach using architectural models to deploy, monitor and reconfigure activities. There are plans to implement the Grid4All architecture in all its scenarios in a real-world case study. Eventually, the benefits to schools, small businesses and even homes could be enormous.
