Petabytes for the people

With 20 petabytes of storage, and more than 280 teraflops of computing power, TeraGrid combines the processing power of supercomputers across the continent

June 26, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A unique federally funded computing effort is making it easier for corporations to access the largest-scale computers on the planet. Dubbed TeraGrid, the effort spans nine different academic and government institutions and has reached a critical mass this year.

The notion is to combine the largest supercomputers into a global processing and storage grid to tackle the thorniest computing problems. "We want to make available high-end resources to the broadest community," says Dane Skow, who is the director of the Grid Infrastructure Group and performs the operational coordination of TeraGrid from the University of Chicago's Argonne National Lab. "We want to leverage our top-of-the-line equipment for people who don't have the skills to do it themselves."

This is how the Internet started. It will be interesting to see where this goes.