The Sun Grid will supply processing and storage capabilities through a Web portal for US$1 per hour per CPU to individual and corporate users, who can pay by credit card.
The grid has been available since last August to large companies that contract for significant use of the system. The retail version is open to all potential users, Sun said.
Aisling MacRunnels, Sun's director of utility computing, described the Sun Grid portal as a "full open pilot" whose typical users will likely be individual scientists, engineers or developers "looking to just get their work done."
Such high-performance computing users are the primary target for the grid, she said.
To a lesser extent, Sun is also aiming the grid at independent software vendors looking to use it to deliver software as a service, she said.
The Sun Grid runs on Opteron-based systems running the Solaris 10 operating system. Sun expects clients to use the grid to run Java- and C++-based software that can take advantage of a grid environment.
Sun isn't disclosing the number of CPUs available to users of the service, other than to say it's in the thousands.
The largest commercial Sun Grid user so far is Virtual Compute Corp., a Cypress, Texas-based firm that provides high-performance computing services.
CEO Edward Hayes said the company bought more than 1 million hours of compute time last fall and has recently been running a customer's seismic survey data to create a 3-D rendering of what's underground.
Sun intended to launch the public grid early last year, but it faced delays, including U.S. State Department concerns about making such massive compute resources widely available.
Because the compute power of a grid could be used for malicious activities, the U.S. is requiring that its users be checked against restricted-persons lists used to identify people who may pose a threat.
Under the pricing schedule, using 100 CPUs for an hour would cost a user $100.
John Madden, an analyst at Boston-based Summit Strategies Inc., said the retail version of the site could give Sun the "proof points" to convince large business customers that use of the grid is straightforward.