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Is It -- Finally -- Time for the Grid? (continued)

Finally, emphasizes Cheryl Doninger, the R&D director of the enterprise computing infrastructure unit at SAS in Cary, N.C., the software actually using the grid -- what's visible on the individual user's desktop -- has to be grid-enabled. She says that SAS added grid capabilities to its software offerings a year and a half ago.

Expanding the Grid
Grid computing is starting to catch on in many enterprises. It is already being used extensively in the financial services, oil and gas, insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Meanwhile, says Doninger, telcos, the travel industry and the entertainment sector, are quickly adopting the technology.

"You can't really pick an area [of the enterprise] that's amenable to grid computing," says McCartney. But, he adds, you can isolate the best uses for the grid. "Science applications work nicely in this environment, Parameter sweeps, statistical analyses and digital rendering also work well."

Any area of the enterprise that needs lots of computing power, and fast, can benefit. Payroll departments can use the grid to help churn out thousands of paychecks overnight, and then forget about the grid the rest of the time. Programmers at SAS use the grid at night -- when they have to quickly process the latest source code builds.

With relatively small initial expenditures, grid computing can enable enterprises to realize extraordinary gains in computing power and efficiency. And in the medium and long term, they can save money. "Grid can run on low-cost commodity and open source operating systems," says Doninger. "We talk [to our customers] about savings, and a lot of times that's why they're starting to look at grid -- because of the hardware savings it can bring."

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