Back on the topic of "Computing....off the Tap", A recent "Intelligent Enterprise" article has some interesting perspectives on the subject, specifically about Sun Grid - "Suns Computing Utility" , primarily the article comments "that the Computing Utility offered by SUN is not really - on demand or utility computing in the true sense and is more like Equipment rentals.

Earlier when we had post about the Sun Grid at this blog, one of our readers "simon" mentioned in the comments section that some analysis needed to be done on the Costs of the GRID. Lots more research required into this topic!!!

Some excerpts from the piece in "Intelligent Enterprise"

• "True utility computing would allow us to dynamically accommodate computing needs for multiple departments across multiple lines of business, without additional hardware purchases or maintenance costs," says Whit Stockwell, CTO of Genalytics. While Sun's "utility" launch piqued his interest --- Genalytics develops in Java --- Stockwell didn't buy in because, he says, utility computing has to mean more than just adding capacity for peak usage times.
• Sometimes claims of "utility computing," such as Sun's, turn out to be nothing more than cluster computing. True utility computing requires the ability to respond quickly to need. That entails having grid software that's sufficiently intelligent to match customer service-level agreements with spikes in computing needs, so computational power is sought out automatically and without advance notice.
• "Renting a grid from Sun with a couple hours notice is just not possible now," says Nick gall, SVP, MetaGroup. "I believe the days of true utility computing, where companies run their traditional data center applications on a grid, are a long way off."

Prashanth Rai