Global Grid Paradigm--"A Collaborative Approach to People, Resources and Services Using Distributed Technologies in the Asia-Pacific Region"

Distributed systems constitute a core area of study in the science of computing. These systems evolved from the standalone computers of the 1970s and 1980s to the complex networks today involving the interaction of large numbers of components namely Computer terminals, Client/Server based network computing, and other high end resources. Over the past decade or so distributed computing has come up in a big way. This is partly due to the rising cost of high-end machines and the need of lower-end users for large scale computing. Their evolution has opened up the development of a wide range of high performing applications. It has changed the user\´s perspective of computing forever. The user now has the option of utilizing the collective capabilities of the resources by globally moving information from remote systems towards localized usage. Grid or Cluster computing has been a key technological breakthrough, although in its infancy has enabled people to virtually utilize "infinite" storage capacity and computing power by collaborating and consuming remote resources and services. However, building such systems for generic user needs involves subjecting the system to numerous complexities or system specific parameters. The paper highlights existing systems in the Asia Pacific region and talks about the major breakthroughs and limitations of existing distributed systems prevalent in the Asia Pacific.