Grid Computing May Transform Internet

Several news organizations report that a massive global grid computing setup, created by European scientists to process data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), may speed the search for a cancer cure as well and eventually could enable ordinary computer users to do things almost unimaginable today, such as predicting local weather or searching through years’ worth of home movies to retrieve a particular moment.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, organized the LHC Computing Grid, a network of 100,000 computers in 33 countries, to cope with the unprecedented mountain of data that will be generated by the LHC, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex, which will be online again in spring 2009 after a shutdown due to an equipment malfunction. According to Scientific American, before the year is out, the LHC is projected to begin pumping out a tsunami of raw data equivalent to one DVD (five gigabytes) every five seconds. Its annual output of 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes) will soon dwarf that of any other scientific experiment in history.

The grid is designed to enable scientists to sift through that information from their laptop or desktop computers with a few keystrokes.

Wikipedia explains that in grid computing, a "super and virtual computer" is created from a cluster of networked, loosely coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks. The approach has been used to tackle complex scientific problems and in commercial applications ranging from seismic prediction to e-commerce, but never before on this scale. A new middleware platform, Globus, is designed to make accessing data as quick and easy as sifting through the contents of a desktop folder.

“The [world wide] web allows you to access information on other computers. What the Grid allows you to do is not only access the information, but make use of their computing resources and power,” CERN scientist Bob Jones explained to The Times (U.K.).

The Times reports that one of the first jobs the grid will tackle is handling the raw data for CERN’s experiments into finding proof of existence of the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” whose existence has been predicted by physicists, but which has never actually been observed.

But in addition to its particle physics applications, the grid already is being used on a smaller scale in medical research on diseases such as malaria and avian flu. “The grid cannot find a cure for cancer, but what it can do is make it quicker,” Jones told The Times, explaining that what might have taken a decade could now be done in weeks.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, told The Times that the grid would enable scientists to run hundreds of thousands of simulations to create a shortlist of the drugs that are most likely to offer the potential for a disease cure. Researchers can then get to work testing the drugs singled out as promising.

The Times also reports that the grid has already been used to save lives in the immediate aftermath of earthquakes. Using the seismic data, scientists can use the grid for simulations that pinpoint which areas are most affected, allowing rescue teams to direct their efforts where they are most needed.

David Bader, executive director of high-performance computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, imagines that the grid will spawn a revolution in everyday computing as well. He told Scientific American that future middleware platforms may allow home computers to provide instant local weather forecasts by accessing information from nearby environmental sensors. Or it might help sift through a lifetime accumulation of personal medical records or years of home video footage looking for dimly remembered events.