Singapore"s National Grid Office is focusing on the adoption of grid computing by industry and business users as it embarks on the next phase of the National Grid Pilot Platform (NGPP).

Issuing the invitation to all interested parties to join the NGPP, Lee Hing Yan, deputy director of the National Grid Office, said, "In our next phase, we will be approaching other research organizations, schools, polytechnics and the industry."

Lee is also chair of the program sub-committee for the inaugural GridAsia 2005, which is being launched by the National Grid Office (Singapore) in May. In line with the National Grid Phase 2, the Industry Track at GridAsia 2005 aims to promote the use of grid computing in various industries in Singapore. This particular track is targeted for the senior management and not just the technical managers and practitioners.

"We hope that industry players will take time to attend the event to see first hand how grid computing can provide them the added competitive advantage," said Lee. The "Father of Grid Computing", Ian Foster, will be delivering the keynote address at GridAsia.

The NGPP is an environment where heterogeneous compute resources and a variety of platforms are available. The backbone of the existing NGPP consists of a high-speed network connecting technical computing resources. "We will also expect other types of resources such as data, storage, devices, and instruments to be available on the NGPP in the future," said Lee.

This is part of Singapore"s response for a pragmatic approach to developing a cyber-infrastructure locally. The NGPP aims to support grid computing for academia, research and industry. Initial participants include NUS, NTU, SMA and the research institutes under A*Star.

The NGPP connects NUS, NTU, SMA, Bioinformatics Institute (BII) and Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), and the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC). The NGPP network bandwidth is 1G bps (bits per second) for the first 13 months of implementation from 1 September 2003 to 30 September 2004. The NGPP will have local and international Internet and Internet 2 connectivity via SingAREN.

SingAREN ? Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network ? is a national initiative to create a high-speed broadband network platform to support research and education as well as advanced network technology development in Singapore.

To ensure the smooth operation of the NGPP, a Governance Council comprising representatives from the stakeholders will develop and promulgate policies in areas such as management and operation of the NGPP, sharing of resources on the NGPP and code of conduct for users.

The Governance Council will also develop a framework for service level management to ensure that NGPP service levels meet desired objectives, to monitor and review the performance and utilization of the NGPP, and to develop a framework for economic model for next phase of NGPP.

The Governance Council will have executive powers to warn and sanction users who abuse their rights or misuse the facilities provided for by the NGPP.

Register for GridAsia 2005 at http://gridasia.ngp.org.sg.

GridAsia 2005

The National Grid Office (Singapore) is launching the inaugural GridAsia 2005 which will be held from 2-6 May 2005. To be held in Biopolis, GridAsia will comprise four main tracks ? International Academic & Research; Local Technical; Industry and an Exhibition.

The program aims to cater to everyone from individuals who would like to find out more to practitioners and user organizations in the industry as well as research and development community. GridAsia aims to become major annual event in the region bringing together researchers and practitioners in Grid Computing as well as related technologies and applications.

GridAsia 2005 is co-organized by Agency of Science, Technology and Research, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, National Grid Office, Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore.