Avaki Data Grid – Secure Transparent Access to Data

“For over thirty years science fiction writers have spun yarns featuring worldwide networks of interconnected computers that behave as a single entity. Until recently such science fiction fantasies have been just that. Technological changes are now occurring which may expand computational power in the same way that the invention of desk top calculators and personal computers did. In the near future computationally demanding applications will no longer be executed primarily on supercomputers and single workstations using local data sources. Instead enterprise-wide systems, and someday nationwide systems, will be used that consist of workstations, vector supercomputers, and parallel supercomputers connected by local and wide area networks. Users will be presented the illusion of a single, very powerful computer, rather than a collection of disparate machines. The system will schedule application components on processors, manage data transfer, and provide communication and synchronization in such a manner as dramatically improve application performance. Further, boundaries between computers will be invisible, as will the location of data and the failure of processors.” [1]