It Infrastructure

Infrastructure is a technology that we take for granted when performing our information systems activities. Our IT infrastructure in the United States will have to be upgraded to support the increasing demand for IT services of the population. Computing and processing demands are doubling every two years; that's a factor of 32 over the course of ten years. According to IBM, “experts think computational power will need to start increasing four-fold every two years—a factor of more than 1,000 over 10 years.” Smarter technology is going to have to be developed to be able to handle the increasing demand in computing.

Computer power, data storage, and communication continue to improve exponentially, but computational resources are failing to keep up with what scientists demand of them (Foster, 2002, para. 1). A new class of infrastructure is being discussed, and it is known as the “grid”. The Grid will make it possible to share resources on an unprecedented scale, and for geographically scattered groups to work together in ways that were previously impossible. The vision of the grid is to, “put in place a new international scientific infrastructure with tools that, together, can meet the challenging demands of 21st-century science (Foster, 2002, para. 5). The Grid offers new and more powerful ways of working, as the following examples illustrate:

• Science portals- make advanced problem-solving methods easier to use by invoking sophisticated packages remotely from Web browsers.

• Distributed computing- A concept of having high-speed workstations and networks yoking together an organization's PCs to form a substantial computational resource (Foster, 2002, para. 21).

• Large-scale data analysis- A way of harnessing distributed computing and storage resources in a single location so that everyone can have access to data of great value.

• Computer-in-the-loop instrumentation- Real-time analysis when using scientific instruments. A way to analyze science...