[ogsa-wg] Slides available at

[Donal K. Fellows]

Yuri Demchenko wrote:
> Andrew Grimshaw wrote:
>> The voice over stress that the hardware view of a grid is what is one the
>> slide --- and that it is also what we have called distributed systems for
> 
> Is grid a hardware, or can it be separable from the software?

I've always taken the view that the Grid is an abstraction of all that
hardware/software/service gunk. As a consumer of the Grid, you should
not care, and should not have to care, whether the thing you are using
is real hardware, virtualized, a pure software entity, or what. Just
like as a consumer of electricity from the grid, you're not too bothered
about whether that power came from burning coal, oil or gas. Abstract
virtualization (which is probably not exactly what you're talking about,
but an abstraction of it) is almost certainly the real key to it all.

Naturally, those people involved in the management of the Grid will
care, but they should be in the minority, just as electric company
employees are in the minority compared to power users.

Here's hoping this makes things clearer, not more obscure!

Donal.