First Thuesday - CERN, The Grid gets real

A few years ago, "the Grid" was just a vision dreamt up by some computer scientists who wanted to share processor power and data storage capacity between computers around the world - in much the same way as today's Web shares information seamlessly between millions of computers. Today, Grid technology is a huge enterprise, involving hundreds of software engineers, and generating exciting opportunities for industry. "Computing on demand", "utility computing", "web services", and "virtualisation" are just a few of the buzzwords in the IT industry today that are intimately connected to the development of Grid technology. For this third First Tuesday @CERN, the panel will survey some of the latest major breakthroughs in building international computer Grids for science. It will also provide a snapshot of Grid-related industrial activities, with contributions from both major players in the IT sector as well as emerging Grid technology start-ups.