| How
the National Grid impacts Singaporeans
5 Nov 2003
Singaporeans will also benefit from the
National Grid. For example, in the faster delivery of health
services once privacy issues are sorted out, in computed-assisted
drug design and in the formation of virtual gird communities
where researchers with common interests can colloborate more
easily.
Mr Peter Ho, chairman of the National Grid Project, discusses
the impact of the grid on Singaporeans. Here are excerpts
from the interview with Computer Times. How will the National Grid affect ordinary lives?
'The man on the street will not notice any difference
initially. However, we hope that the research facilitated
by grid
computing will eventually lead to an impact on their
lives. Let me explain:
'Grid computing will impact the way health services
are delivered to the common people. In Mindef,
we are digitising
the X-ray
images of our soldiers which can be viewed by the doctors
irrespective of where the X-rays are taken and where
the patient is currently located. Once we resolve
all the ethical
issues related to the handling of personal and confidential
medical information about a patient and develop the technology
to protect such information, grid computing will be used
to deliver more and more e-health services.
'Computer-assisted drug design needs the support of
massive amounts of computational resources. We
believe that new
drugs will be discovered at a faster rate because of
grid computing.
'Networking technology has improved by leaps and bounds
mainly because of the insatiable demand for grid
computing. For
example, you would have read that the latest research
network can download an entire DVD movie in seven
seconds. This
is more than 20,000 times faster then what our current
domestic
broadband network can deliver. Ultimately such technology
will be made available to the ordinary people.
'Eventually,
we think that computing resources and services will be
delivered to all homes, offices
and factories
in a manner similar to how electricity and water
are delivered.'
How
will the National Grid contribute to the scientific community
here?
'It will encourage research-ers with common interests
to form virtual grid communities (VGCs) to promote
grid activities
among themselves and to develop applications
to run on the Pilot Platform. Currently, there
are
two VGCs,
in
life sciences
and in science and engineering. The National
Grid is currently working to form VGCs for digital
media
and
manufacturing.
'With the National Grid, we hope to encourage
researchers to tackle problems that they
would not have bothered
to consider previously (due to lack of computing
resources).'
Will the National Grid be linked to another
country?
'The grid is already connected to the world
via Internet 1 and Internet 2 (the Internet
network
running the
latest Internet operating software). Already,
some of our researchers
are collaborating with overseas researchers
via Internet 2. For example, the Nanyang
Technological
University
collaborates with the Osaka University
in Japan; the Institute of High
Performance Computing collaborates with
the Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Information,
and the BioInformatics
Institute collaborates with San Diego Supercomputing
Centre in the United States.
'Currently, the National Grid is exploring
the possibility of linking up to the
cyber infrastructures
of the
United Kingdom's e-Science and the
US National Science Foundation.
There's also the possibility of developing
common standards and tools to facilitate
collaboration
with them.'
How will the National Grid manage its
computing resources?
'It has formed a gover-nance council
to set policies and rules, and to
control the usage
of the resources
shared.
The council comprises representatives
of
the stakeholders who have committed
the computing resources for
sharing.
'Initially, we expect the sharing
will be bilateral, based on terms
agreed
among the
research collaborators.
Spare
resources will be made available
at no costs to students and other
registered users. But they will
be given lower priority and may only
be
allowed
to use a limited
range of
resources.
'Users will register with the
National Grid office via a portal.
The office
will grant
the necessary
privileges and
access according to the status
of the user, and the guidelines
and policies.
'The governance council will
monitor the exchange of resources.
If everyone
is satisfied
that there
are
fair exchanges
of cycle time and that the
resources can cope with demands, I think
there will be
few problems.
'Currently, the economics of
charging for compute resources
over a grid
is still
at the research
stage. Hence,
we expect to see trading
instead of charging practised on
the Pilot
Platform.'
[Source:
Computer Times, 5 Nov 03]
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