Grid Computing, what is it?

Grid computing enables the secure sharing of data and programs from several computers, either PCs or supercomputers. These resources use the network thanks to dedicated middleware solutions. In this way, they can generate a virtual system with powerful computation skills and storage capacity. Scientific or technical projects that require high a computation capacity or the access of huge databases can thus be performed efficiently.

Nowadays, research, especially in the medical field, increasingly resorts to grid-computing because of significant computation and storage needs. Each year, there is a twofold increase in biological data. Grid computing technologies are remarkable tools to speed up new treatment discoveries; they enable more accurate planning and decrease research and medicine development times.

For example, the Smallpox Research Grid project, sponsored by Oxford University, IBM and the company United Devices, has enabled scientists to analyse millions of molecules in order to identify those which could be used to produce smallpox medicine. In less than 6 months, 45 potential anti-smallpox treatments have been found out.