IBM, start-up become grid partners

BOSTON - IBM announced last week at the GridWorld show in Boston that it has licensed commercial releases of Globus middleware from Univa, a start-up focusing on open source grid software .

IBM says it will also use Univa's software on its grid projects.

"The important thing from our perspective for grid computing really to be successful is for it to be implemented based on open standards," says Ken King, vice president of grid computing at IBM.

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BOSTON - IBM announced last week at the GridWorld show in Boston that it has licensed commercial releases of Globus middleware from Univa, a start-up focusing on open source grid software .

IBM says it will also use Univa's software on its grid projects.

"The important thing from our perspective for grid computing really to be successful is for it to be implemented based on open standards," says Ken King, vice president of grid computing at IBM.

Univa's three founders - Steve Tuecke, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman - created the open source Globus Project in 1995 and began development of the Globus Toolkit. They later renamed the project the Globus Alliance. The grid tool kit includes software services and libraries for resource monitoring, discovery and management, along with security and file management. Last December, Tuecke and the other founders formally launched Univa as a software and services company to offer commercial implementations of Globus.

Univa plans to deliver its first commercial product, Univa Globus Enterprise, by year-end.

The initial version of the software will be well supported to run across IBM's eServer hardware on both Linux and AIX, IBM's flavor of Unix, Tuecke says, along with other vendors' platforms.

"This sort of relationship is exactly why we created Univa," he says. "IBM is very strategic for us."

IBM's King drew parallels with the development of Linux, as the Globus Toolkit plays the part of the open source operating system, while Univa takes on the role of Linux distribution companies Red Hat or Novell's SuSE in creating commercial products.

The agreement between IBM and Univa is non-exclusive, and King says he hopes other companies, particularly application vendors, will strike up similar arrangements with the start-up. Tuecke won't discuss the status of other pending deals, particularly one that has been long rumored with SAP.

IBM has been a longtime backer of Globus, previously developing its own implementation of the open source Globus Toolkit, King says. Once Univa's product ships, IBM will move its in-house and customer developments based on Version 3 of the open source software to Univa's commercial implementation, he says. Univa Globus Enterprise will be based on the fourth iteration of the Globus Toolkit.

"We will continue to support customers using our [IBM] implementation," King says. IBM will also continue to contribute technology back to the ongoing open source development of the Globus Toolkit, he adds.

In January, IBM, Sun, HP and Intel teamed to form the Globus Consortium, an effort to invest money and technical know-how in improving the Globus Toolkit , initially to fix bugs.

Using the Linux analogy again, Tuecke likens the Globus Consortium and its functions to those carried out by the Open Source Development Labs in the Linux arena. The labs operate as a non-profit consortium that promotes use of the open source operating system.

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