May 26, 2004

Tech giants are pushing the grid and utility computing dream here. But it will be a while before it happens. RADHA BASU reports

Pay only for what you use. That, in a nutshell, is what utility computing allows companies to do.

Which means they pay for the time and computing power of what is used. Just like for water or electricity.

Computer giants such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM and Sun Microsystems have all been pushing utility computing in Singapore this year.

The concept itself is not new. For years, IT solution providers have been providing companies software applications on tap. What is new, however, is that the pay-as-you-use model now extends to computing infrastructure as well.

Ms Wan Mee Fem, country manager of IBM's Open Computing Centre, sold the business compulsions that would make the technology attractive to companies.

'Companies will be able to use on-demand computing to be able to quickly respond to changes in today's highly dynamic marketplace,' she said.

Mr Tan Choon Seng, vice-president and managing director of HP Singapore agreed: 'Infrastructure has to be able to flex with the business, to do whatever the business demands of it.'

Therefore, IT must be a platform for efficient and effective business applications and processes.

HP, too, recently entered into a similar tie-up with IDA to help enterprises tap into grid and utility technologies through research and development, 'test-bedding' and people training.

Grid computing

Both Mr Tan and Ms Wan stressed that grid computing was the precursor and, indeed, a key enabler for utility computing.

A grid is a high-speed, cyber-infrastructure that links data, computers, sensors and other software resources into a single virtual laboratory.

This enables flexible, controlled resource sharing across the network.

While the Internet allows users to share information and conduct transactions, a grid allows the sharing of computing power and storage space.

While utility computing is rather new in practice, grid computing has already found several takers here. For instance, the government-supported National Grid was launched last year. Although it is still largely used by the education and research institutes, grid computing has already found its first enterprise customers in Singapore.

According to Dr Lee Hing Yan of the National Grid Office, several companies in the digital media and engineering design industries are already piloting grid-based applications.

Analysts, however, said that it would take a few years before grid and utility computing really take off here.

'Grid computing initiatives will certainly not be restricted to education and research institutions,' predicted IDC Asia-Pacific's associate director for enterprise servers and workstations, Mr Rajnish Arora.

In a couple of years, he expects enterprises to start 'embracing grids as the necessary hardware and software tools become much widely available to fully leverage this computing architecture framework'.

THE WAITING GAME

Companies in Singapore are listening hard to the vendor hype on utility computing.

Two chief information officers (CIOs) Computer Times spoke to, however, said that while they are exploring the concept, it might be some time before they finally embark on it.

Mr Ng Tiong Gee, CIO of ST Assembly Test Services, elaborated: "Utility computing is a vision that we would like to achieve for infrastructure. But I don't think it is there yet."

Mr Ng said his company would like to have the ability to pay for usage of IT resources. "Most of the time you plan for peak load - which leaves a lot of unutilised resources during off peak.

"Utility computing, if it performs to its promise, should give us the ability to cut that waste and also to ramp up when there is unexpected demand without having to invest on expensive capital expenditure."

Mr James Kang , CIO of NTUC Income agreed.

"Utility computing makes great sense in theory - you don't have to buy hardware and can hire on demand," said Mr Kang. However, he added, that big companies like his had already invested heavily in hardware and software.

"We need to recover our sunk costs," said Mr Kang. "We will be looking at utility computing only when our existing infrastructure depreciates and the time comes to upgrade our systems."

Which is not for another two years.

"Unless, of course, the vendors offer us really attractive prices."