Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
even dramatically change research practices. The first development is best known
under the names Grid Computing, Semantic Grid, and Cyberinfrastructure, all
pointing to big, systematically planned “top-down” e-research infrastructures. The
second, even more recent development is best known under the umbrella terms
Cloud Computing and Web 2.0, and is much more heterogenous in nature, but nev-
ertheless aiming for integrated and interactive knowledge services that enable new
forms of “social scholarship” (Cohen, 2007). We will turn to each if these in this
section.
The availability of a wide range of specialized research tools in combination with
the fact that the Internet is connecting all researchers to each other and a wealth
of resources is the driving force behind the move toward e-research. While this is
strongest in the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities are also
seeing respective developments (Barjak et al., 2009). The Grid is a software infras-
tructure that enables “flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic
collections of individuals, institutions and resources” (Foster, Kesselman, & Tuecke,
2001, p. 200). The core of the Grid architecture is a layered structure (see Fig. 12.1)
formed of various interoperable protocols (Berman, Fox, & Hey, 2003; Foster et al.,
2001 and Fig. 12.1).
Fig. 12.1
Conceptual layers of the Grid (Markauskaite & Reimann, 2008)
The evolution of grids started in the early 1990s (De Roure, Baker, Jennings &
Shadbolt, 2003). The first generation systems primarily focused on proprietary tech-
nological solutions for sharing high-performance computing resources at the bottom
layer of the Grid model. The objective was to provide computational resources to
a range of high-performance applications, primary for scientific discoveries in the
