Many Grids, to fit many tastes and requirements

Jim Gray is a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer. He is part of Microsoft’s research group and is Manager of the Microsoft Bay Area Research Center. Over many years his work has focused on databases and transaction processing and he was awarded the ACM Turing Award for his work on transaction processing. He has also been active in building online databases like http://terraService.Net and http://skyserver.sdss.org.

In this discussion, Dr. Gray talks about his view of the Grid, as seen through a Microsoft lense. He describes:

• how ‘the Grid’ is composed of multiple communities and interests
• the challenges that face each
• Web Services and OGSA and places these in context
• the commercial dimension.