ABSTRACT
This chapter is a survey of the grid computing field as it applies to corporate environments and focuses on what the potential advantages of the technology in these environments are. The goal
is to serve as a familiarization vehicle for the interested information technology (IT) professional. It should be noted at the outset, however, that no claim is made herewith that there is a single or unique solution to a given computing problem; grid computing is one of a number of available solutions in support of optimized distributed computing. Corporate IT professionals, for whom this text is intended, will have to perform appropriate functional, economic, business-case, and strategic analyses to determine which computing approach ultimately is best for their respective organizations. Furthermore, it should be noted that grid computing is an evolving field, and so there is not always one canonical, normative, universally accepted, or axiomatically derivable view of “everything grid-related”; it follows that occasionally we present multiple views, multiple interpretations, or multiple perspectives on a topic, as it might be perceived by different stakeholders of communities of interest.
