Press Releases
Only 8% of UK organisations ready to reap the benefits of grid computing
[30-05-2006]
Education key factor as 88% of boards don’t rate grid computing a high priority
London – Tuesday 30 May 2006 - Research released today by Morse, the technology integration and services company, has shown that grid computing is failing to be implemented by IT departments because of a lack of understanding and confusion. From the 100 IT managers asked, 88% claimed that their board of directors didn’t see grid computing as a priority and only 8% said their business had adopted, or was going to adopt grid computing with many admitting that their reasons for not adopting grid computing was that it was too complex, expensive or insecure.
Grid computing, originally used by big pharmaceutical companies, academics and researchers to process large amounts of data, allows businesses to create a cluster of servers that pool resources and act as a single computer. This helps them achieve higher data availability and allows them to add resources on demand, thus helping them to improve their system utilisation and saving them money on the implementation and cost of new servers and mainframes.
"The main thing holding grid computing back from mainstream adoption is the lack of a clear definition of what this technology actually is. This has created a great confusion in the industry and clearly, there is a need for education to clear up the myths surrounding this technology to ensure businesses can reap the rewards of grid computing," said Peter Critchley, strategy director, Morse.
Although grid computing has been tipped as being "the next big thing", it clearly isn’t even making it on to the radar screen in major organisations. Just under a third (29%) of organisations surveyed think that grid computing is too expensive, possibly as a result from seeing it stem from big budget pharmaceutical companies. However, grid computing can save companies money as the utilisation of all their current computer power is much more cost efficient than buying single silo servers.
Over a third (34%) of those questioned cited a fear that grid computing was too complicated as one of the reasons behind their hesitance to adopt grid computing. Part of their fear may stem from the thought of having to build and construct a grid from scratch, including picking an operating system, the software and the hardware. However, businesses can reuse existing hardware when it comes to grid computing and just install software. With added expert advice and help with the implementation businesses can easily reap the benefits of this technology.
"Most businesses will spend thousands of pounds buying new servers but then have their heads in the sand when it comes to getting full use of them. Businesses commonly waste a significant portion of their IT budget because they aren’t fully utilising their servers," said Critchley. "By moving to a grid computing model, which allows businesses to virtualise their existing server capacity so it is viewed as one large pool, businesses can run applications across many servers using up any smaller amounts of remaining capacity instead of just buying another new server."
As grid computing involves running applications in diverse environments and across businesses, approximately a third of IT managers expressed concern over security issues and vulnerability. As grid computing is used by industries, such as automotive, to allow smaller partner companies access to some share of the bigger organisation’s computer powers, the fear here is that an unscrupulous employee at one of the smaller companies may use this as an opportunity to hack into other parts of the bigger company’s data in order to steal important information. However, this is easily solved by having traditional security measures such as access controls and user authentication in place as well as managing resources so users have enough access to compute but not delve into other company data.
Other security steps that businesses can take include "sandboxing," which uses software to reduce the risk of having data stolen by a Trojan horse. The software allows users to quarantine a malicious code in a protected environment on their computer, so the code cannot affect data. In industries where data is extremely sensitive, such as finance, businesses can also go a step further by installing a global identification scheme such as the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificate which is the same technology that is used in online banking services. This has the added benefit that people are already comfortable and familiar with this technology.
"Grid computing is the way forward for businesses as it is simple, secure and inexpensive to use. It also helps businesses better utilise their existing infrastructure to avoid purchasing excess white boxes. Businesses can easily unlock the benefits of grid computing by working with their partners to find out the truth about grid computing and in turn help their business thrive," Critchley concluded.
The research was commissioned by Morse and conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne. Further details of the survey are available from Spark Communications on 0207 436 0420.
About Morse plc
Morse is a technology integrator, providing solutions to clients who want to make their IT more flexible and better aligned with their business. Morse offers technology and services that include consultancy and project management, information and application integration, smart sourcing, service management and infrastructure efficiency. Established in 1983, Morse is listed on the London Stock Exchange, employs over 1800 people and has operations in the UK, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Ireland, South Africa, USA, Singapore and Malaysia. The company has evolved over the years through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.