Twenty-some leading technology companies have launched a new Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA) consortium to develop enterprise grid solutions and accelerate the deployment of grid computing in enterprises.

The EGA consortium has been formed to "encourage and accelerate movement to an open grid environment through interoperability solutions. It will work on grid computing specifications by endorsing and supporting existing specifications, assembling and profiling component specifications, and defining new specifications where needed." When specifications needed in enterprise grids are not available, EGA will create new specifications within the EGA consortium or by initiating efforts in other specification forums. EGA working groups have been proposed to address: (1) Reference model; (2) Component provisioning; (3) Data provisioning; (4) Utility accountingl (5) Grid security.

Companies having representatives on the EGA Board of Directors include EMC, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, Intel, NEC, Network Appliance, Oracle, and Sun. Initial Sponsor members of EGA include AMD, Ascential Software, Optena, and Paremus; they are joined by other companies as founding participants in Contributor and Associate member categories. EGA intends to liaise with other consortia and SDOs, creating MOUs and harmonizing IPR norms; it will seek to work with organizations like DMTF, GGF, OSDL, SNIA, and others (W3C, OASIS).

Technology submitted to EGA and produced within its working groups is intended to me made available royalty-free: "EGA believes in the open disclosure of intellectual property interests and a commitment to royalty-free licensing of essential patents associated with foundational grid technology specifications. As part of their membership obligations, EGA members preparing specifications, test cases or reference implementations agree to license their essential patents under royalty free, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms."

The EGA consortium is "an open, independent and vendor-neutral community addressing the near-term requirements for deploying commercial applications in a grid environment. Initial focus areas include reference models, provisioning, security and accounting. The Alliance will address obstacles that organizations face using enterprise grids, by looking at best practices and solutions that are open and interoperable. By focusing exclusively on the needs of enterprise users, the EGA will enable businesses to realize the many benefits of grid computing such as faster response to changing business needs, better utilization and service level performance and lower IT operating costs."

The proposal for a commercial grid consortium was initially presented by Oracle's Chuck Rozwat at OracleWorld San Francisco (September 7-11, 2003).

Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA) Consortium Overview

"The Enterprise Grid Alliance is a consortium of leading vendors and customers focused on developing Enterprise Grid solutions. It is open, independent and vendor-neutral. Anyone can join by executing relevant agreements and paying dues — there are no admission barriers. Multiple participation tiers allow for inclusion and for entities to elect the engagement level sized to their business model and / or technology relevance..."

Scope: "The technical scope of the EGA is grid computing. This scope includes grid activities within enterprise data centers, but not desktop grids; using proven and standard enterprise components, but not vector supercomputers; within and between trusted and secure enterprises, but not involving dynamically defined virtual organizations, and for use with enterprise commercial and technical applications, but not scientific computing or academic research grids..."

Organization and Operation: "The Alliance is an open, independent and vendor-neutral organization. Companies can join at sponsor, contributor, or associate levels. There is a Board of Directors formed from representatives of sponsor members, and steering committees for technical, marketing, and regional activities. Working groups are constituted to undertake the activities of the alliance... EGA is incorporated as a 501 (c) (6) non-profit corporation and organized for the mutual benefit of its participants...

The Alliance really a simple organization. There is a board of directors charged with oversight and direction setting. The board is elected from the sponsor member organizations. There are a series of committees, the most important of which is the Technical Steering Committee, which creates working groups to address specific technical issues or opportunities. The committees are created by the board, and report to the board. The working groups themselves are where our members work together and get the real work done. The working groups are created by the committees, and report to them. The day-to-day administrative operation of the alliance is outsourced. This lets our members concentrate on the real work we're here to do, rather than do things like run the website..."

Why the grid focus? "Grid computing is already well established in the academic, research and technical sector, and there are many organizations developing technologies and standards initiatives to meet the needs of that sector. Enterprise grid deployments have requirements that differ from non-commercial or more academic implementations and the existing grid community is not yet addressing their needs adequately. Some of these requirements, such as service level agreements around access and security, the ability to audit an action and rights management generally don't have the same relevance outside of commercial enterprises...

Other requirements, such as the emphasis enterprise computing users typically place on consolidation and centralized control may not be desirable or even possible outside of an enterprise setting. The types of workloads and the way they should be distributed also differ between commercial and non-commercial applications. By focusing exclusively on the needs of enterprise users, we believe this consortium can accelerate the deployment of open solutions for enterprise grid computing and enable businesses to immediately benefit..." [adapted from the Mission Statement and "What Is" document]

From the Announcement

Leading technology companies today launched the Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA), a consortium formed to develop enterprise grid solutions and accelerate the deployment of grid computing in enterprises.

Grid computing connects pools of computers, storage and networks, enabling enterprises to dynamically allocate resources based on changing business needs. Exploiting rapid advances in technology, enterprise grids enable organizations in the public and private sectors to adapt their Information Technology (IT) resources to their business needs.

The EGA is an open, independent and vendor-neutral community addressing the near-term requirements for deploying commercial applications in a grid environment. Initial focus areas include reference models, provisioning, security and accounting. The Alliance will address obstacles that organizations face using enterprise grids, by looking at best practices and solutions that are open and interoperable. By focusing exclusively on the needs of enterprise users, the EGA will enable businesses to realize the many benefits of grid computing such as faster response to changing business needs, better utilization and service level performance and lower IT operating costs.

The initial EGA Board includes EMC, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, Intel, NEC, Network Appliance, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. Other founding members are AMD, Ascential Software, Cassatt, Citrix, Data Synapse, Enigmatec, Force 10 Networks, Novell, Optena, Paremus and Topspin. In addition to providing an open forum for enterprise software, hardware, service companies and end users, the EGA is working with other consortia and standards organizations to promote integrated enterprise grid solutions and improve adoption rates.

"Comprised of a remarkable group of technology companies, the EGA was formed to accelerate the adoption of grid computing in the enterprise," said Donald Deutsch, president, Enterprise Grid Alliance and vice president, standards strategy and architecture, Oracle Corp. "With our pragmatic approach focusing on the enterprise, EGA is uniquely positioned to deliver near term, tangible benefits."

"Grid computing, previously known largely as a powerful tool for the high performance computing community, is emerging as an important platform for critical business functions," said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's vice president of system software research. "The next critical step in the adoption of grid computing is the creation of standards and compliance testing for those standards. Standards bodies like the Enterprise Grid Alliance are critical to enterprise grid computing as it emerges over the next five years. Working in conjunction with other grid alliances, the EGA can place a stake in the ground to define the solutions and specifications essential for organizations to adopt enterprise grid computing."