Architecture Requirements for Commercializing Grid Resources

Contemporary computing systems, especially large-scale systems such as Grids promise ultra-fast ubiquitous utility computing, always available at the flip of a switch. A major unresolved issue is the organization and efficient usage of such infrastructure in a commercial context where several entities compete for shared resources. This has long been resolved for conventional utility resources such as gas and electricity through commoditization, a variety of market designs, customization, and decision support for the resulting portfolios of assets and commitments. This paper reviews the state of Grid commercialization and compares it to the commercialization of conventional resources. We draw specific lessons for commercialized Grids and detail them as architecture requirements at each level of the architecture stack. We provide an example to illustrate the benefits of commercialized resources in terms of the financial clarity it brings to decisions for different user groups, namely application users and IT managers.
(Revised version of May 2002)