Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
6.2 What a Grid Solution Consists of
As mentioned before, a Grid solution is a result of collaboration between several
market players whose products and services together form the solution provided
to the end user. Next we will discuss what is really needed to build such solutions
focusing on the most essential Grid market players and the exchange flows between
them.
6.2.1 The Grid Market Players
One common concern for newcomers in the Grid market is the wide variety of
terms, definitions, and names relating to different market players. Often it might be
almost impossible to make sense who is providing what to whom. Moreover, when
reading these names and roles in IT news and publications it becomes very evident
they are often used in an inconsistent manner.
While it is not our remit here to turn this inconsistency into an organised consist-
ency, we aim to clarify the main market players and their roles as Grid service
providers. The methodology for our analysis originates from the Porter's well
known value chain concept (Porter 1985) which has been widely used in the busi-
ness literature to describe the value creation system among organizations. The anal-
ysis of value creation systems helps to understand how the different entities work
together to produce value, and the value creation analysis is considered as an effi-
cient tool for tracing product flows, showing the value adding stages, identifying the
key actors and their working relationships.
Even as Porter's value chain defends its position as one of the most applied
analysing tools, more dynamic value creation analysis methods have appeared to
describe the multiple interactions found in a networked economy. Value network is
one of these methods, which enables the analysis of multidirectional, complex, and
dynamic value creating relationships between two or more individuals, groups or
organizations (Allee 2002, Pil and Holweg 2006, Tabscott et al. 2000). We define
value network as a web of relationships that generates economic value and other
benefits through complex dynamic exchanges. We apply value network analysis to
illustrate and explain the dynamics which prevail in Grid technology based solu-
tions, and provide an overview of players involved and how the competences and
value adding activities are divided among them (Stanoevska-Slabeva et al. 2007).
The following table lists the most important market actors involved in the provi-
sion of Grid solutions. They are grouped into four clusters based on the activities
they perform and the positions they take in the Grid value networks:
•
Utility Computing core cluster
comprises all the actors that provide the basic
capabilities and resources required for offering infrastructure as a service, i.e, for
providing utility computing. The environment created by the utility computing
core cluster is the basis for providing applications in a SaaS manner by the
Application/ SaaS provision cluster.
•
Application/SaaS provision cluster
includes the market players that are needed
to deliver the applications and services to the end user.
