Around the Horn: Analyst Discussions Around Grid

GRIDtoday has run a number of interesting articles recently highlighting analyst research on grid computing. Keep in mind, most of these reports can cost big money but very often the abstracts or press releases provide some detail that is interesting, your mileage may vary.

Bob Rosenberg at Insight Research has a report out that forecasts the vertical market spend for grid computing. Interesting in particular as the Grid spending numbers have actually increased (in fact nearly doubled for 2008) since their 2003 Vertical Market Perspective. Bob also has a detailed backgrounder available on the Insight web site.

"Though large telecommunications firms, including BT and Telefonica, have selected a Grid middleware software partner to build out their service delivery capabilities, and a number of startups in Grid have received venture capital, Grid is still new to many IT organizations," said Insight Research president Robert Rosenberg. "The technology is still seeking widespread acceptance because using Grid computing software is still a challenge, and the dominant standards remain somewhat unstable."

The Aberdeen Group has a report out that says SOA adoption has reached 90%. I'm a little less sure that I believe the hyperbole in the title of this one, but with all the talk surrounding virtualization/grid/SOA it is good to see reports focusing on this area.

The report highlights three approaches to SOA adoption:

• SOA "Lite": This approach is based on open-source programs and industry standards and is best suited for small companies, lightweight integration, and simple Web services such as employee self-service.
• Enterprise SOA: This is a suite of SOA middleware for mission-critical and complex installations, best suited for mid-to-large companies.
• SOA ERP. This approach offers mid-size and some large companies an entry to SOA via extensions to enterprise resource planning (ERP) application software.

And The Yankee Group released last week the results of its 2006 Global Server Virtualization Survey. Some of the major survey findings include:

• Sixty-two percent of respondents already have a virtualization solution in place or are in the process of migration.
• To date, only 14 percent of businesses have not yet chosen a server virtualization vendor, and only 4 percent of companies have no plans to install a virtualization solution.
• VMware is the market leader with 55 percent of the installed base.

I am generally skeptical about these reports until I understand the methodology behind them. However, all three of these reports appear to be based on survey data pulled from shops working through the virtualization/Grid/SOA experience.