Abstract: GRIDs technology has developed from first generation, supplier-specific and configurationspecific systems through second generation systems providing metacomputing facilities over various underlying platforms. The 2.5 generation added facilities for fast data transfer (GRIDFTP) and directories (LDAP). The third generation embraced from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) community the idea of services, leading to OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture). Under GGF (Global Grid Forum) auspices, a team from UK has developed OGSA/DAI (Data access interface) which starts to make 3G GRIDs usable. However, others consider the existing architecture unsuitable for widespread acceptance beyond the metacomputing / supercomputing community. A small group of ERCIM experts was invited to give keynote presentations at an EC-sponsored workshop in January 2003 which had well over 200 participants. This led to a call from the community for documentation of NGG (Next Generation GRIDs). The three...
Keith G. Jeffery