IBM is attempting to attract corporates to its grid computing vision, by launching commercial software packages designed to take advantage of idle processing capacity within organisations. The IT giant is promoting the grid concept as a low-cost alternative to supercomputers for solving compute-intensive business problems.

So far, grid computing has been largely confined to academic and research communities but the technology received a significant push last week when IBM introduced 10 grid packages aimed at the aerospace, automotive, financial, government and life sciences sectors.

The packages include IBM hardware - typically IBM xSeries servers running Linux - and Globus grid toolkit software, managed by IBM in accordance with Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA), which is designed to provide a framework for grid computing initiatives.

Dan Powers, vice president of grid strategy at IBM, said grid computing enabled enterprises and users to share computing power, databases and other tools across enterprise boundaries without sacrificing local autonomy.

In a typical firm, PCs use only five percent of their overall capacity, servers only 10 to 15 percent, and storage systems only 20 to 25 percent, he added.

IBM also said it is working with financial services company Charles Schwab on grid projects, including one which it said reduced the time for a credit risk analysis routine from more than four minutes to just 15 seconds.

Middleware developers are backing IBM's grid push. The firm is working with Platform Computing, Data Synapse, Avaki, Entropia and United Devices, which are helping it with the complexities of the grid model, most notably to work across multiple platforms and improve security.

For security reasons, the early efforts are aimed at firms deploying within their organisations. "[IT buyers] have a lot of concerns about security and the privacy of their data," said Philippe Bricard, manager of grid computing at IBM Europe.

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