Globus Alliance's Ian Foster questions what the requirements would be SAN JOSE, CALIF. — The emergence of a market for compute cycles generated by grids is a possibility, but questions remain about its viability, according to an expert on grid computing who spoke at the ClusterWorld Conference & Expo event here on Wednesday.Speaking about grid and Web services, Ian Foster, a leader of the Globus Alliance, which has developed the open source Globus Toolkit for grids, entertained the notion that markets for grid-based cycles could occur. With grids, compute cycles are pooled from various systems and applied to different jobs in a distributed network.“One direction in which grid could go would be if we develop a market for computational resources,” he said, responding to an audience question. However, Foster added, it was unclear to him what the requirements are and if such markets will happen. “It’s certainly intriguing,” said Foster, who is a professor of computer science at the University of Chicago and co-author of “The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure.” In his speech, Foster stressed ties between Web services, provided a brief blueprint for the Globus Toolkit, and noted the commonality between grids and clusters.“Grids, I believe, are going to open up a lot of new opportunities for cluster systems and they’re also going to place new demands on clusters, depending on how they’re architected and how they’re used,” he said. Foster cited the application of Web services standards to grid. “We’re finding that Web services provides a powerful set of building blocks on which to build grid systems,” Foster said. Web services provides infrastructure for grids through specifications such as WSDL, which describes network services; SOAP, for interacting with services, and UDDI, serving as a service registry mechanism, Foster said.The Globus-developed Open Grid Services Architecture provides for a service-oriented mechanism for grids and merges Web services and grid computing, he said. Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) and Web Services-Notification specification, which is part of WSRF, offer mechanisms for referring to resources and managing the lifecycle of resources in grids, according to Foster. Version 4.0 of the Globus Toolkit, due out in the fourth quarter of this year, will support WSRF technologies. WS-Notification and WSRF are intended to provide a standards-based infrastructure for business applications, grid resources, and systems management. Other priorities for the toolkit in 2004 include usability, performance, documentation, and internationalization. Also being eyed are data access and integration, metadata management, and enhanced GridFTP.Release 3.2 of the toolkit, released March 31, focuses on Web services technology, Foster said. Software Development