Utility Computing's Branding Problem

from the what's-that-now? dept

For all the hype coming out of IBM, HP and Sun around "utility" or "grid" computing - when asked, most companies had no idea what was meant by those phrases. However, when the concept was explained, they understood what it was, and how it could be useful. Clearly, there's a bit of a marketing problem at this point. However, it's still early in the push for such services and the confusion should diminish over time. The more important question is whether or not companies will actually find utility computing useful and cost-effective.
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  • identicon
    gman, 23 Aug 2003 @ 12:06pm

    Grid computing

    Grid computing is an *entirely* bogus concept. It is just this years flavor and will vanish just like other similar trends. There is exactly nothing in grid computing that hasn't already being talked about in the larger field of distributed systems. I know loads of people who work in this area and I you get them away from the public stage they all without exception admit that it is just a great source of research money and that they are largely label engineering problems to fit the current cash cow. (there's a mixed metaphor if ever there was one)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Aug 2003 @ 6:29pm

    funny you should mention this...

    ...I've got a CIO who's filling out a "grid" computing TCO as I write this. I'm not sure he knows what it means either.

    Unless your organization has large compuationaly distributable problems it needs to solve on a daily basis, then the resource of thousands of idle desktops should probably be reanme p2p computing.

    Things like this:

    http://www.hivecache.com/

    could be extremely useful to your organization.

    I've distributed desktop IDS systems have caught my eye in the past.

    If you're not using grid computing to solve daily IT problems or you don't have a huge number crunching mainframe you're trying to get rid of, it's a huge waste of time and effort.

    I really wonder just how upper managment get sold on this BS.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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